


Cupboards and Cryogenics

by YodelingProspector



Category: Captain America (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abused Harry, Abusive Dursley Family, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Child Harry Potter, Confused Bucky Barnes, Gen, HP timeline is bumped back, Harry Needs a Hug, Kid Fic, Protective Bucky Barnes, Veritaserum, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YodelingProspector/pseuds/YodelingProspector
Summary: When HYDRA sends The Winter Soldier to bring them the four-year-old Boy Who Lived, the outcome is not what they expected





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got bitten by another plot bunny, the second in two weeks. I've been on a huge Bucky kick the past few months, and figured I would see if anyone likes this.
> 
> As for the background, well, HYDRA's pretty widespread in the movies. Maybe there are some wizards in it. They probably didn't work directly with Voldemort, since he's anti-muggle, but presumably they would have heard of him, and The Boy Who Lived, if they knew about magic. They probably want to control him.

The mission is simple. Get the boy, bring him to his handlers, to HYDRA. There are to be no witnesses. The Asset does not remember his last mission, but the idea of not leaving witnesses is as familiar as the action of shooting a gun.

At 1824 local time, the Asset arrives at Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England. He has been out of the cryo tank for the past few days.

If the houses did not have numbers on the front doors, there would be no way to tell them apart, since this street, and many others around it, are lined with rows of identical houses. Each house is the same nondescript tan color with a brown roof, and the houses have only a few standard places of entry or exit- the front door and the back door, although the windows would work as a backup. The locks will be pathetically easy to break. Each house also has a perfectly trimmed lawn.

The Asset arrives at his destination, Number 4 Privet Drive- the residence of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, the Asset had been told during the mission briefing. There are two boys residing in the house as well, but HYDRA is only interested in one of them. The Dursleys' own son, Dudley, is of no use.

HYDRA wants Harry Potter. The Asset does not know what his handlers want with a four-year-old boy, but it is not the Asset's place to know the reason behind his missions. His job is to do as instructed, not ask questions. Asking questions results in punishment, sometimes the chair.

It's already dark outside, which makes things easier for the Asset, although the Asset is skilled enough to do this in broad daylight if required. It's easier to go unnoticed in the dark, and that darkness also means Privet Drive is empty of playing children. Most of them are probably eating dinner at the moment, but the Asset's only concern is what the Dursley family is doing.

Circling to the back of the house, the Asset finds a concealed spot in the bushes with an optimal view of the kitchen. Just because it is dark does not mean the Asset should stand in the open. The Asset crouches, still and silent in the bush, spying on the residents of Number 4.

Mr. Dursley and a boy are seated at the dinner table. Both the man and boy are in horrible physical condition and massively overweight. The boy is blonde, so he must be the Dursley boy, not Potter. The Asset was told in the briefing that the Potter boy has black hair, green eyes, and an unusual, lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

There's an even smaller, skinny boy with messy black hair and taped glasses by the stove. That is the target, that is Potter. Potter is so young and short that he requires a step stool to reach the pot that's cooking on the stovetop. The boy's ragged clothes are sized as if they once belonged to the Dursley child and would already be far too big for Potter if he was a healthy weight.

The Potter boy is not a healthy weight, but in the opposite extreme of the Dursley patriarch and child. His arms are like sticks waiting to be snapped at any moment.

The boy is small and young, not seeming like he could be of any benefit to HYDRA, although the family has clearly tried to find a use for the boy. The Asset does not think HYDRA wants Potter for his culinary skills- or lack thereof, since Potter is struggling at flipping the grilled cheese sandwiches on the pan.

Next to the Potter boy is a thin, long-necked woman who is scowling as she watches the tiny child struggle to cook.

The Asset's enhanced hearing means he can make out the sounds from the kitchen even though the windows are closed. "Flip it quickly or it will burn!" Mrs. Dursley snaps at the boy, slapping him on the back of the hand with a wooden spoon. Potter lets out a little yelp. "I won't have you messing up my precious Duddy's dinner."

"You better not burn anything, boy." Mr. Dursley barks angrily, and Potter flinches in terror. Mr. Dursley seems to enjoy seeing that reaction.

"I'm hungryyy! Mummy, I wanna eat _noooow_!" The Dursley boy's whining voice makes the Asset want to shove his fingers in his ears to block out the sound, but doing so would be mission noncompliant. Auditory input is necessary for complete surveillance. "Make him go faster!"

Potter quickly moves to serve the grilled cheese to the Dursley boy before going back to the stove and putting a large steak on a plate for Mr. Dursley, along with some potatoes. Mrs. Dursley waits for Potter to serve her and then tells the boy to go stand in the corner.

The Asset is reminded of his handlers, even though he is never ordered to serve them food. At least Potter knows how to follow orders. Whatever HYDRA has planned for Potter, compliance will be expected. Failure to comply leads to correction. Potter seems to know that already. The Asset watches the boy hunch his shoulders and scurry to the corner of the kitchen, looking down at the floor.

Throughout dinner, Potter is not offered anything to eat despite his obvious lack of nourishment. The Dursley boy, on the other hand, demands several more grilled cheese sandwiches after gluttonously eating the first few.

Potter is forced to make the other boy more, but leaves them on the stove for too long, resulting in a burnt odor that the Asset's enhanced olfactory senses pick up.

Potter looks terrified as Mr. Dursley lurches angrily towards him. "What did we just tell you not to do, you freak?" He spits the last word like a curse.

"N... not to b-burn the food." Potter stammers out. "'m sorry, Uncle Vernon, sir."

"Sorry doesn't change the fact you burnt it, boy!" Potter's uncle roars as he grabs the boy and presses the Potter's tiny hand into the hot pan, and the familiar smell of burnt flesh invades the Asset's nostrils. Potter screams, and something inside the Asset's chest burns as he watches.

The Asset is sure that, whatever this malfunction in his chest is, it will be fixed when he returns to his handlers.

Potter is trying to stifle his sobs as Mr. Dursley carries him into the hallway and dumps the boy unceremoniously into a small cupboard under the stairs. He slams the cupboard door shut and stomps back to the kitchen.

The way Potter is locked up reminds the Asset of how he is cryogenically frozen between missions. The feeling in the Asset's chest grows stronger.

After dinner and dessert- the Dursley boy had thrown a tantrum in order to have both cake and pudding despite having already eaten more than enough, and surprisingly he was not punished- Potter is called out of the cupboard to wash the dishes in the kitchen.

Potter obviously is not a master at working through pain yet, neither does he have enhanced healing like the Asset. The boy's burnt hand causes his progress on the dishes to be extremely slow and clumsy, since he has to do everything with his left hand. Potter is clearly worried about dropping something or not working efficiently enough. Of course such an act of carelessness would be punished harshly, the same goes for the Asset. Which is why he will not fail this mission.

The Asset can hear Potter's stomach rumble with hunger, but Mrs. Dursley watches the boy like a hawk to make sure he does not swipe any food for later. The Asset does not know when the boy last ate, but he is clearly not given enough sustenance to fuel optimum performance, like the Asset is.

Yet the odd feeling in the Asset's chest has only increased as he watches the Dursley's force the injured boy to do chores while the Dursley boy watches some sort of mindless program on a box with a screen in it, guffawing with yet more pudding smeared on his face. At the fact Potter is not even fed.

Then it happens. Potter drops a plate, and it shatters on the floor. This leads to Potter's second punishment in the evening.

As he watches Dursley beat Potter, where the boy's body had fallen on top of the shards of the broken plate, something briefly flashes through the Asset's mind. A mental image of an older, blonde boy who's not quite as scrawny as Potter, but close, getting beat up in an alleyway by some larger boys. The boy in the mental image looks familiar, even though the Asset has never seen him before. The image is accompanied by the overwhelming need to _protect, protect him._

Whatever that strange vision, whoever the scrawny blonde boy was, the vision will be gone when the Asset returns to his handlers after completing the mission. Once he's in the chair, it will be gone.

The chair always hurts, but the Asset's pain is unimportant.

The Asset refocuses on the current target. Negligence and loss of focus are mission noncompliant, and usually punished.

As he watches Potter being punished by Dursley for those same offenses, the Asset thinks he may have decided to terminate the Dursley's even if _no witnesses_ was not specified in the mission. It does not make sense that he would think that, when the punishment makes sense itself.

Potter is once again discarded in the cupboard under the stairs, and from the way the boy's shirt was staining red, he's sustained some injuries, probably both from the porcelain plate shards and the beating.

The Asset could barge in now, choke the life out of Mr. Dursley, but the man's wife or child might make enough noise to alert the neighbors. It will be easier to wait. _Make it look like an accident,_ is part of the mission.

The Asset moves only to pull a protein bar out of his backpack pocket and eat it mechanically.

At 2221, the majority of Privet Drive is dark and quiet, the residents of the street having gone to bed. The Asset continues to sit silently in the bushes, waiting. By 2248, the last light at Number 4 goes out as Mr. and Mrs. Dursley go to bed.

He waits until 2308 to allow the Dursley's to fall asleep, going by the average time it takes. Then, the Asset creeps out of the bush and to the back door of Number 4. Disabling the alarm and picking the lock are not even a challenge, merely a tiny inconvenience. The Asset is capable of breaking into much more secure places than a civilian house. He could have simply broken the door, but that would leave evidence of his breaking and entering, and would probably make enough noise to wake up the house's residents.

The interior of Number 4, and of course the Asset does not turn on a light, instead wearing a pair of night vision goggles from his backpack. His booted feet make almost no sound on the tiled kitchen floor. Most people would be clomping around clumsily, loud enough to wake the dead, but the Asset is highly trained. Staying silent is almost as natural as breathing.

He walks past the door to the cupboard under the stairs, noticing that is locked. He'll come back for Potter after he's dealt with the Dursley's. He can hear the boy sobbing almost silently in the cupboard, but when the Asset creeps up the stairs, making only the faintest sound on a creaky stair, he hears the boy hold his breath in panic. Of course the boy would hear any sounds on the stairs when he's under them.

Upstairs, in the first bedroom, the Asset finds an unoccupied bed and piles of toys, most of which are broken.

Is this bedroom Potter's? The Asset turns and walks out of the bedroom. It does not matter, since there is nobody here. That question is not related to the mission.

The next bedroom is much like the first, filled to the brim with toys, but the Dursley boy is snoring loudly in the bed.

The Asset follows his orders, but something in the back of his mind protests as he slowly smothers the Dursley boy, even though the Asset is fairly certain he's killed children before. Besides, the boy is expendable, only Potter must survive.

He then stalks into the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. They are asleep, rather than engaged in other activities. The Asset would not want to see that. His mind does not protest as he simultaneously curls a fist around each of their throats. Their wide-eyed looks of terror and choked pleas mirror Potter's as they slowly stop thrashing.

He shuts their eyes so it looks like they're asleep, but they won't wake up again. He leaves their room without glancing back.

He can hear Potter's breath hitch as he walks down the stairs. The Asset quickly breaks the lock on the cupboard door and pulls it open, his night vision goggles letting him see inside without turning on a light.

Inside the cupboard is a small, stained mattress that is too small to fit any of the bed frames upstairs. There are some shelves lined with various cleaning supplies, a couple broken toy soldiers on the floor, and a headless stuffed bear. There is a bare lightbulb that the Asset does not turn on.

Potter is curled in a fetal position on the mattress, staring at the Asset with wide green eyes and clearly trying not to cry. The Asset can see the telltale lightning bolt scar on his forehead now. One of the identifiable features in the mission report. It did not say how Potter got such an odd scar, but that information is not important to the mission.

The Asset reaches into the cupboard and pulls the boy out, standing him up and quickly looking him over. There are a few shards of glass embedded in his palms (even the burnt one), and at least one in his side, having punctured his shirt.

"Stay." The Asset commands in English. He does not usually speak English, but he rarely speaks at all. His handlers mostly use Russian. Turning, he heads to the bathroom in search of a first aid kit. He does not find one in the downstairs bathroom, but the Asset saw a bathroom upstairs.

"You'll wake up da Dursleys." Potter whispers with scared eyes when the Asset starts to climb the stairs.

The Asset doesn't answer, but he knows the Dursleys will not wake. In a cabinet in the upstairs bathroom, he finds what he was looking for. The first aid kit comes complete with bandages, sterile gloves, tweezers, scissors, antiseptic cream, cleansing wipes, and more items that are irrelevant.

When he goes back downstairs with the first aid kit, he sees Potter has not moved a centimeter from where the Asset left him outside the cupboard. The boy does not know him and he still follows orders.

That trait will serve him well.

The Asset guides the boy into the kitchen and removes the boy's shirt, quickly checking to see if there is any more porcelain stuck in his small body.

Grabbing one of the boy's hands, the Asset pulls a shard out of Potter's palm with the tweezers. Potter whimpers.

The Asset knows what painful healing is like. Whenever his handlers work on his prosthetic arm, there is always a lot of pain.

He tries to cause Potter as little pain as possible as he first removes the shards of glass from the boy's palms and side. He cleans the cuts before bandaging them.

He then runs Potter's burnt hand under cool water and covers it with a sterile, non-adhesive bandage.

Potter stares at the Asset's prosthetic arm and eventually whispers "Are you a robot?" The boy tenses immediately after asking, as if expecting a rebuke for asking. Speaking out of turn would get the Asset at least a slap.

"No." The Asset says tersely. It is not critical to the mission that he answer the boy's question, but maybe he won't ask more. He was not instructed to slap the boy, so he doesn't. The part of him that protested killing the Dursley boy would have protested slapping Potter, as well.

The boy is quiet for a bit longer as the Asset finishes patching him up. He seems almost shocked that someone is bothering to do so. The Dursley's almost certainly hadn't helped him heal.

The Asset is not entirely sure why he is. The mission briefing had nothing about patching the boy up, just that he was to remain alive and relatively unharmed. Had his handlers known the boy would be harmed?

Delivering the boy in the best condition possible would be the most successful mission outcome. That's why he is doing it.

But there's also the thing in the Asset's head saying to protect the boy.

Once he finishes picking porcelain out of the boy's side and bandaging it up, he hands Potter his shirt back. It does not matter if his shirt looks like little more than rags, the Asset knows. It is not important.

The boy is skinny. He needs to eat. Proper nutrition is required for optimum performance. The Asset ignores the refrigerator- too cold- and instead pulls another protein bar from his backpack and hands it to the boy.

Potter stares at him as if he's not sure if this is a trick.

"Eat." The Asset commands. Potter does not need to be told twice, tearing the paper off and cramming as much of the bar as he can in his mouth.

The Dursley boy surely would have refused to eat it and complained about the taste. It is fortunate the Asset does not need to put up with the Dursley boy. At least Potter is well-behaved and knows how to follow orders.

"Thank you, sir." Potter says softly, probably about treating his injuries, or the food. The Asset says nothing, but it takes him by surprise. He is a weapon. Nobody calls the Asset _sir._

Potter probably will not be thanking the Asset when he is delivered to HYDRA. The thought makes the Asset frown, but he does not know why. He will have completed his mission.

"Come," He mutters to the child.

"I don't haf'to stay here?" Potter asks in a hushed voice, eyes wide with awe.

"Come." The Asset repeats, trying to ignore the way his stomach twists at the thought of where the boy is headed. There is no reason for his stomach to twist.

The Asset does not want the boy to go through what he goes through. The chair, the cryogenic tank. The Asset does not want to go through them himself. No, the Asset is a weapon. The Asset does not have wants. The Asset completes the mission. Not delivering Potter would be failing the mission. Failing the mission would be worse, would lead to punishment.

The boy means nothing to him, he is just another mission.

Even if Potter goes through a similar fate as the Asset, it is none of the Asset's concern. His young age means nothing. The Asset might have been as young as Potter when he started. He does not remember, has no way of knowing.

When the Asset returns to his handlers, these malfunctioning thoughts and feelings will be wiped. They are mission noncompliant.

The Asset simply grabs the boy with his flesh arm and holds the boy to his side. Potter stiffens slightly, but does not try to wriggle free. Stopping briefly back at the cupboard, the Asset grabs the boy's taped glasses and puts them on his face. The boy blinks.

The Asset does not grab any of the toy soldiers or the bear. They are pointless.

He heads to the kitchen, still holding the boy, and fiddles with the stove, setting it to catch fire and explode. Then, he steps out the back door, closing it behind him.

The mission is almost complete. It will look like the Dursley's merely perished in a fire. The authorities will probably not know that Potter was even there. The Dursley's made that easy. There were no pictures of Potter in the house, but plenty of the Dursley boy.

The house explodes when he's a street away, and lights in houses flicker on around him. The Asset is already keeping in the shadows and he is not spotted as he stealthily moves in the dark, still holding Potter. It takes several minutes before the sirens of fire engines are audible.

With every step the Asset takes towards where he will meet his handlers, some malfunctioning part of his brain tells him to turn around and walk the other way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my brother for being my sounding board for this chapter and helping me figure stuff out.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure, but I might be bumping the Harry Potter timeline back so this takes place in the 2000s so it could line up with Marvel stuff. Or I could keep it canon for Harry and have this take place in 1984. I haven't really decided, yet, but it doesn't matter for this chapter.

Severus Snape is not happy when he is woken in the middle of the night by Dumbledore's Floo call. He gives the old coot a glare that would make any first year, and a majority of the upper year students, wet their pants in fright if he used it on them in Potions class, but of course Dumbledore is immune.

"Severus, I need you to find Harry Potter." Dumbledore's head says from the fire without preamble. "Come to my office."

The head disappears from Severus' fireplace, and he quickly Floo's to Dumbledore's office, so quickly that Dumbledore has not even walked back to his desk by the time Severus arrives.

Dumbledore's demeanor is grave, when normally he's jovial, and he seems to have aged another fifty years. The usual twinkle in his eyes is so dim that it's almost gone, and for once he does not offer Severus a lemon drop or any other sort of sweet.

"Why, pray tell, is Potter missing?" Severus questions, scowling. It is the middle of the night, and Potter is not even five years old. He is not some sort of teenager staying out well past curfew, and even if he was, why in Merlin's name would Snape be sent to fetch him?

Had the brat simply run away from home, perhaps to punish his guardians after a petty squabble or tantrum? No, that can't be it. Surely Potter is waited on hand and foot by his doting relatives, although breaking rules is definitely nothing new for a Potter.

"Arabella Figg just called me, frantic, saying the Dursleys' house has exploded." Dumbledore tells him.

"If Potter was in there, he surely did not survive." Severus says. Which could be very bad, if he really is the one to bring down the Dark Lord as prophesied. Despite what most wizards and witches naively choose to believe, Snape does not think the Dark Lord had been completely defeated that Halloween night.

"Harry's name is still down for attendance when he turns eleven." Dumbledore answers. Severus gets the message without Dumbledore elaborating further.

Potter is still alive, then. If the boy was dead, his name would have been automatically removed from the future attendance list.

Had he been sleeping at a friend's house?

"With his family dead, the blood wards' protection is no longer effective." Dumbledore tells him gravely. "Harry is no longer safe."

"He was not exactly _safe_ in the first place, considering he could have easily been in that house when it blew up." Severus almost cannot believe that Dumbledore has failed to mention that. Perhaps Potter's muggle family let their other idiot child play with firecrackers in the house, or they stupidly left something in the oven. Regardless, there was most likely a severe lack of discipline in that house, and Potter undoubtedly has no regard for rules.

"Their deaths are a tragedy, but Harry is in danger. Any of Voldemort's followers are theoretically capable of finding him now. You must find him first, Severus."

That would still count as one of the Dark Lord's followers finding the boy, since Severus was a Death Eater before, but he does not point this out.

"Do you have any clue of his whereabouts? Severus asks, scowling, and Dumbledore smiles slightly, although it doesn't reach his eyes. By asking this, Severus has basically agreed to go find the little brat. Not that he could have refused, exactly. Less than three years ago, on that fateful Halloween night, he had sworn to protect the boy in Lily's honor after Lily and Potter were murdered by the Dark Lord.

Severus didn't think the oath to protect the bloody child would come into play until another seven years from now. His hopes that Potter would remain out of his sight and mind until arriving at Hogwarts when he turns eleven have been thoroughly crushed as if they were one of Severus' potion ingredients.

Severus stalks out of Dumbledore's office, black robes billowing. As he quickly walks through the halls, he transfigures his night robes into appropriate muggle attire, still keeping with his usual color scheme of black.

Crossing the grounds of Hogwarts, he reaches the end of the Anti-Apparition wards and apparates to Privet Drive as soon as possible.

He arrives on the usually dull, plain street. It is nowhere near ordinary now. Dumbledore's description of Arabella Figg's message is accurate. Number 4 did not simply catch fire and slowly burn, it appears to have actually exploded like an idiot Gryffindor or Hufflepuff's potion.

He searches for Potter, growing frustrated when he does not find the brat.

* * *

The Asset does not slow his stride as he slips from shadow to shadow, avoiding lampposts that would reveal his location. _No witnesses._ The mission pounds in his head, almost drowning out the sirens that steadily grow louder as fire engines rush to reach the hopeless, smoldering wreck that was once Number 4 Privet Drive, before the Asset blew up the oven.

With every step he takes, the new mission- turn away, protect Potter- echo in his head. The new orders were not given by a superior, yet they demand obedience as much as the mission.

There is a 10% increase in respiration and heart rate. The Asset cannot follow both orders, they are contradictory to each other.

Civilians are looking out their windows, coming out of their houses to see what the explosion was. The Asset stays in the shadows. If nobody sees him, he will not have to kill more witnesses. Less killing makes the mission easier, in multiple ways, some of which the Asset does not understand. He understands that he does not have to hide bodies and evidence the fewer people he kills, but the part of his mind that objected to the Dursley boy's death thinks that there's some other reason. It is unimportant.

"''s on fiwe." Potter's speech is almost unintelligible through a mouthful of protein bar, although the Asset is pretty sure that young children do not have perfect pronunciation in general _._ "Why?"

The boy is clearly rattled from watching the house explode. Potter knows the rule about not asking questions, since the Dursley's seemed to have had similar rules to the Asset's own handlers, yet Potter still asks.

"Be quiet." The Asset orders. Potter stiffens slightly in his arms, but the Asset does not correct the boy beyond that. He does not have to slap the child like he would be slapped himself for speaking out of turn.

Some civilians are even stepping outside their front doors to see what is going on and confer with their neighbors for more intel. A couple children, standing in doorways with their parents, are echoing Potter's question.

An old woman walks out from the house the Asset is currently sneaking past, followed by several cats. The Asset stills, hidden in the shadows. The lady is looking in the opposite direction of the Asset and Potter, distressed at the sight of the fire. She says something about Potter as if she knows him.

A white shape darts out the door of the old lady's house, and runs in the Asset's direction. It turns out to be a feline, and the Asset debates punting the creature away, but that would reveal his presence more than the feline staring at him and possibly mewling for the old lady. It rubs against the Asset's booted feet, purring slightly.

"Snowy." It does not seem like a reference to one of his other codenames, the Winter Soldier. The Soldier figures _Snowy_ is the feline's name, since Potter seems to recognize the animal. The boy once again tenses in the Asset's arms, clearly awaiting punishment for not remaining silent, but the Asset does not deliver the correction.

The old lady most likely does not have enhanced hearing, perhaps she's even suffering from hearing loss associated with age. She does not appear to have heard Potter, but it is better for covert movement if the boy remains silent.

The feline's purring increases in volume as it continues rub against the Asset's boots, and the old lady turns around, asking "Snowy?"

The Asset is already slipping away as the boy says an irrelevant statement about a fig, sounding distressed. The old lady had not noticed them, the Soldier notes. If she had been a witness, the Asset would have failed a mission protocol.

The two sets of orders continue to clash.

Once he delivers the boy, he will be wiped, frozen and stored away until his next mission.

The sirens are getting closer, and the boy does not seem to like the sound. He wriggles in the Asset's arms and whines.

The Asset does not stick around for the fire engines to arrive, with their flashing lights that could compromise his concealment in the night. He slips down a street that is not as awake at the moment as the streets surrounding Privet Drive.

Two escorts are waiting for the Asset in a car. They are not the usual handlers, but they are still to be obeyed. The man in the driver's seat is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently, but they both get out when they see the Asset approaching with Potter.

The Soldier straightens, standing at attention in front of his superiors.

"Took 'em long enough." One of the escorts mutters to the other. The Asset is used to being talked to as if he is not there. One does not talk to a weapon such as the Asset, except during mission briefings and debriefings.

There was not a specified time limit for mission completion in the briefing, but perhaps the Soldier will be punished for 'taking long enough'. If he had gone into the house upon arrival rather than waiting for the street to fall asleep, he would have returned with Potter hours ago, possibly as early as 1840 instead of the current time of 2336.

Potter gives a whine and stares at the escorts with wide, frightened green eyes, shoving some of his fingers in his mouth. He looks like he wishes he could turn invisible so the escorts will stop looking at him.

"Mission report." One of the escorts orders, looking at Potter instead of the Asset, as if to make sure Potter is the right child. The Asset would not make a mistake and bring the wrong one.

"Target Harry James Potter acquired with no injury inflicted by the Asset. Injury was inflicted on the target by Vernon Dursley and a broken plate." The Asset recites, tonelessly as always. "The Asset successfully terminated the Dursley's and left no evidence. There were no witnesses. Mission was completed according to instructions."

"Status." The second escort has a bored tone and picks at his nails.

"The Weapon is functioning within operable parameters." The Asset replies, because that is what it is. A weapon. "There is a malfunctioning in the chest: unidentified cause."

"What kind of malfunctioning?" The first escort asks, and mutters that the Asset cannot get heart attacks. He is correct about that, the Asset's enhanced body is not susceptible to heart problems.

"Heat." The Asset answers. "It is gone now."

The escorts share a look that seems almost worried. When the Soldier follows up by reporting that it is malfunctioning by having the vision of an unknown skinny blonde man, the worried, displeased demeanor of the escorts only increases. Weapons are not supposed to have visions. Will it be punished?

"It will go away when you are in the chair. You will be fixed." One tells the Asset. Visions are hinderances to the mission. The chair is required for optimum mission performance.

"Hand over the child." The first commands. Potter whimpers slightly and tries to clutch the Asset's shirt with his bandaged hands, dropping the rest of the protein bar on the ground and hiding his face against the Soldier's flesh shoulder. Potter had only eaten half of the offered rations.

The Soldier does not let go of Potter. The voice in the back of its head, the one that had told it to turn away, had protested killing the Dursley boy, is screaming orders to not hand Potter over.

Perhaps the voice in the head will be gone, too, after the chair, along with the feeling in the chest. Both are mission noncompliant.

 _Deliver Harry Potter. No witnesses._ Those are the orders, that is the mission. The mission does not involve turning around or walking away, or continuing to hold the boy despite instructions from superiors to hand him over.

The new orders in the Soldier's brain did not come from its handlers. The Asset ignores them, it does not turn away from its superiors, no matter what the head says.

The true mission is delivering Potter, but part of the brain protests.

The mission echos in his head, demanding obedience. _Deliver Harry Potter._

"Soldier, comply." The first escort orders in a harsher tone than before.

_COMPLY. COMPLETE THE MISSION._

"Give me Potter. Now."

The Soldier's sole purpose in existence is to complete any assignment it is given, to obey any order. It was created for that purpose, and is useless if it does not obey. Failure results in correction.

Yet the Soldier's arms do not move. It continues to hold the child, delivering Potter is the true mission.

The Asset is malfunctioning, obeying false orders instead of the true ones given by its superiors. Respiration and heartbeat increase another 5%.

One of the escorts delivers a backhand to the face forceful enough to snap the Soldier's head to the side, but the Soldier does not react otherwise. Potter is yanked from the Asset's arms.

The child, already stressed, starts to squirm and cry. The lamppost on the other side of the street explodes with a shower of sparks. The Soldier's arm whirs. Functionality of the arm is decreased by 2%, but it does not impede movement.

The child is screaming now, a high, shrill sound that mixes with the sirens a few streets away on Privet Drive. It makes the chest malfunction again.

"Shit, he's going to attract attention." One escort grumbles, and clamps a hand over the boy's mouth, effectively cutting off his cries. Potter's eyes are even more scared, and tears stream down Potter's cheeks.

Chest malfunctioning increases by 4%. The unofficial order, _PROTECT,_ screeches in the Asset's brain.

"Get in," The car door is opened and the unofficial orders protest, the Soldier hesitates. It is shoved in, and Potter is thrust into the Soldier's lap. New orders are given, keep Potter quiet and secured.

One way to silence is to cut off oxygen with a hand around the throat. Instead, the Asset covers Potter's mouth with its flesh hand, and does not squeeze. The child is already silent, there is no need for corrective pain or fear like the escorts had given the boy. The boy sobs spasmodically, face streaked with tears and snot that soon cover the Soldier's flesh hand. Mucus would impede with the prosthesis if it got between the metal plates or into the servos.

As the escorts slam the rear door shut, the Soldier only thinks of how it failed the unofficial mission, even though it completed the official one.

* * *

Potter is not anywhere near Number 4, and Severus goes to find Arabella Figg. She has a snowy white cat in her arms and meets Severus halfway between her house and the ruined Dursley residence.

Her job has been to watch over Potter the past years. She reports that she had not seen Potter since yesterday, but she saw the Dursley's son, Dudley, and Petunia at the play park earlier today. She tells Severus that Petunia said Potter was sick when she asked where he was.

Perhaps he was, but August is hardly the time for colds. And why would Potter have been out of the house tonight if he was sick?

He really hopes that the boy, now that he doesn't have any living family, isn't going to come live at Hogwarts. Severus doesn't have to put up with the brat for what should have been almost seven Potter-free years.

He is just asking Arabella where the last few places the brat had been are when the unmistakable scream of a child fills the air, coming from another street. Severus sees the streetlights flicker and die, as if blown up by accidental magic.

_Potter._

Snape sprints to the other street in time to see a man shove Potter into the back of a car and slam the door shut while another man starts to climb into the front passenger seat on the left.

Had these men taken Potter from his home before the explosion, perhaps blown the house up on purpose? It's a lot more plausible than Potter playing on the play park across the street and the men just happening to abduct a random child.

With four quick flicks of his wand and a silent _Reducto,_ Severus blows up all the car's tires, assuring that it will not be going anywhere. The two men whirl around, producing guns from their belts.

Obviously the two men are Muggles, not Death Eaters, which is a bit of a relief. But why are muggles kidnapping Harry Potter? Do they know who he is, or is it just a coincidence? The house blowing up doesn't seem like a coincidence, especially when it turns out Potter was being kidnapped.

Regardless, now is not the time to be pondering this.

Severus casts _Expelliarmus_ on them both, and they two men look shocked when the guns fly out their hands. Before they can attempt to grab their weapons again, Severus hits them both with _Petrificus Totalus._ Their bodies go rigid and fall to the street.

That was almost pathetically easy.

He stalks towards the car, wand still drawn even though the two men are immobilized. Something- no, _someone,_ someone who is much to large to be Potter- throws open the door and leaps from the interior of the vehicle with incredible speed.

Before Severus can react, he finds himself pinned to the ground with a rather metallic hand wrapped around his throat. The moonlight glints off a knife blade poised above him.

Severus apparates from under the man to the other side of the street where the play park is, quickly firing _Expelliarmus_ at the attacker, who he now notes is a man with long, dark brown hair, a scruffy face, and goggles. But the most noticeable thing about the man is the silver, metallic armor on his left arm that almost shines in the moonlight.

The man is currently shutting the car door, trapping Potter inside, and but does not take his attention from Severus. He does even not react with surprise at Severus' apparition, but briefly glances down at the two petrified men as if awaiting orders.

Still, he dodges Severus' spell almost instinctively, again much too quickly for a person. The third kidnapper is not nearly as easy to take out as the first two. He adjusts to the fact that Severus is now far away by tucking away his knife and drawing a gun in one fluid motion. Severus only barely has time to conjure a shield as the man aims and fires with astounding speed and precision.

Unlike most guns, this one apparently does not have a loud gunshot. Severus barely hears the weapon fire, his own apparition actually sounds more like a gunshot than the gun. Have Muggles invented ways to keep guns silent?

The man continues to stalk towards Severus like a predatory beast, firing a few more bullets in an obvious attempt to weaken Severus' shield while perhaps unintentionally preventing Severus from apparating away or disarming the man with _Expelliarmus,_ like he had with the other two men outside the car. Or the man might be preventing Severus from doing anything but conjure a shield on purpose, since he seems extremely adept at switching tactics at a moment's notice.

He seems more like a highly trained assassin than a standard kidnapper.

The man continues to shoot with his right arm. The plates on the armor of his left arm shift in an almost rippling fashion, and the Potions Master realizes it's not armor at all- it's some sort of advanced prosthesis.

The gun clicks as if it needs to be reloaded, and Severus takes the opportunity to lower his shield and cast _Expelliarmus,_ but the man's metal arm shoots up and the spell actually ricochets off, flying harmlessly into the night sky, so he still has the gun.

That complicates matters, Severus thinks as the man finishes reloading his gun before he can even fire off another spell.

This time, the man rushes Severus with a knife while simultaneously shooting, and he quickly whirls around when the wizard apparates, not even giving Severus a chance to take him by surprise.

Who is this man? He's clearly a muggle, but he's more than a match for a highly skilled duelist like Severus. Snape almost would like to see the Dark Lord face off against this man. The Dark Lord would hate potentially losing to a muggle.

Hopefully Snape doesn't meet that fate.

Perhaps _Incendio_ will take care of the metal arm, Severus hopes. Again, the man dodges the spell, but only barely this time. It singes his long hair.

When Severus casts it again, the man doesn't even let it touch his arm, instead ripping a swing off the swing set and using it as a shield. The next moment, the flaming swing seat is flying towards the Potion Master's head, and the man charges at him, obviously trying to get up close and personal, something most wizards do not do. Severus only just apparates away.

Successive apparition like this is rather draining on magical levels. Severus' magic is strong, but it's starting to drop the more he apparates, and he hopes he doesn't get splinched soon.

When Severus finally manages to hit the man with _Stupefy,_ the actual armor- which looks nothing like the suits of armor at the castle and instead looks more like a thick cloth vest- takes the impact and the man doesn't even falter for a second, drawing his gun again. Severus throws up another _Protego._

With the prosthetic arm, the man somehow rips a teeter-totter out of the ground and swings it like a club at Severus, essentially attacking him in two ways simultaneously.

Severus has no choice but to extinguish his shield and apparate away, even as the man squeezes off another shot, which thankfully doesn't hit him. The Potions Master reappears right behind the man, hoping to catch him by surprise.

The _crack_ of apparating gives Severus away and the man whirls around, grabbing him in another chokehold and hurling him across the play park, hard enough that Severus actually dents a metal slide.

Being a wizard does not mean one cannot be stunned from physical injury, and before Severus can recover, the mysterious man delivers a blow to the side of his head with a metal fist, and Severus' world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I didn't make Snape seem underpowered in this, but I kind of needed Bucky to win...
> 
> Switching from "he" to "it" when the Asset was with the escorts was intentional on my part.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this is going to take place sometime in the 2000s instead of 1980s when Harry was born in canon. I'm not entirely sure exactly when in the 2000s, though. If other Marvel characters do make an appearance, I don't know how old I'd want Harry to be when lining up with that timeline.

The mission should have been simple. It had almost been complete, at least the Soldier's part of it. All it had left to do was keep Potter quiet in the back of the car, the last orders it had been given, as the escorts did their job.

The attacker has set the mission back by immobilizing the escorts and blowing out the car tires. The Asset had delivered the boy to the escorts, but now the escorts are stiff and useless, no longer capable of driving him back to the airport and flying him back to the HYDRA base.

The Soldier looks at the limp form of the attacker it had just knocked out, making sure he is completely neutralized and will not wake up for a while. The attacker has long, greasy dark hair and black clothes.

The escorts had not explicitly ordered him to fight the attacker once he had taken them out, but it had not been necessary. The Soldier could not let the attacker take Potter as it seemed he'd been planning to do.

The enemy asset had been a unique opponent with abilities and a weapon the Asset has not encountered before. Perhaps he is an asset for the enemy.

The Asset had defeated his opponent. Losing would have been mission-noncompliant and punished.

The odd, weaponized stick has fallen from the man's limp hand. The Asset quickly frisks the unconscious attacker, but finds no other weapons or any source of identification. All the man has is the weaponized stick. With it, the enemy asset had been able to project shields powerful enough to stop the Asset's bullets, and had shot out various energy blasts that the Asset had been able to dodge with its enhanced speed. Most people would have been unable to dodge greater than or equal to 90% of the man's attacks.

Some of the energy blasts the weaponized stick shot had set things on fire. The man had tried to burn the Asset's prosthesis, so he had not let those hit him like the one that was deflected off his prosthesis. The Asset had been sloppy in dodging and one blast had singed some hair, but otherwise no damage was sustained during the battle.

The man had been limited by only being able to perform one action with the weapon at once, and by having only one weapon in the first place. The Soldier had taken advantage of each limitation, as always.

The Soldier's metal hand hovers over the weaponized stick, which currently looks quite harmless. He does not know if the weapon will go off if picked up, nor does he know the extent of its capabilities.

HYDRA would most likely like to know about this new weapon.

The stick could prove useful. The Asset cannot teleport or make guns fly out of opponents' hands and petrify opponents like the attacker had with the weapon. It's as if the man was some sort of wizard with a wand, but both are fictional.

The Asset carefully picks it up, making sure to point it away from any body parts. The weapon does not shoot out any energy now, seems to be no more than an ornate stick.

Heading back to the car, he checks on the escorts. They have not moved since falling to the street. The escorts' bodies are frozen and rigid as if in cryostasis, like the Asset between missions, except the escorts' temperatures are still around the average of 37 degrees celsius, and their eyes are open and moving, indicating consciousness.

The Asset does not know how to reverse the effects of whatever the energy blast had done to immobilize his escorts, but he does not try to wave the weaponized stick to counteract their paralysis.

The escorts are now useless to the mission. The Asset will be punished for that, even though it was the rival asset who took them out.

The escorts' mouths are shut, preventing speech and rendering them incapable of providing further orders or corrective punishment.

It is up to the Asset to bring the boy to the base now. It should not be too difficult.

It would not be difficult, if the Asset was functioning properly. He is not.

The unofficial orders in the malfunctioning brain command him to do just that, trying to reset the mission. The escorts can not stop it like they had before. The voice in the head giving the new orders will not be quiet.

The voice is jeopardizing the mission.

 _Deliver the boy._ The Asset thinks. That is the true mission.

The car is also useless with its tires blown. There are spare tires, but it would take too long to change them, and the man he'd just fought might have backup or other agents of his own. The Asset will not stick around here to find out.

Seeing the car in the middle of the darkened road brings forth another vision, of sniping a car so it crashes on the side of a different abandoned street in the night. Of wrapping a hand around the woman's throat, cutting off her choked pleas as she sat in horror over her dead husband.

The dead man in the vision seems familiar, as if the Asset had seen him before being ordered to kill him. The Asset thinks that was a previous mission as he remembers grabbing a case from the trunk of that car.

The vision fades, leaving the Asset standing in the middle of Magnolia Crescent.

Past missions are irrelevant. The only mission that matters is the current one. Potter.

The Asset grabs the backpack from where he'd dropped it in the street to increase mobility during the fight and slips the stick into one of the side pockets. Right now, it seems to be just a stick instead of a weapon. Perhaps it was calibrated so only the man he'd just fought can use it, in which case it might be useless to his handlers unless they can modify it like they modify him.

His handlers might not be as mad about the escorts being petrified if he delivers another weapon, in addition to himself and the boy. The Asset will still be punished, of course, but it might be less severe.

After putting on the backpack, he opens the car door to grab the boy, and is immediately hit with the unpleasant new smell of urine, plus the lingering scents of burnt flesh, blood, and antiseptic from earlier. The Asset wants to yank his nose off and throw it away, because enhanced olfactory senses are not advantageous in this situation, or when he is being operated on.

Potter is not sitting in the backseat, but rather wedged on the floor where the rear passengers' feet go, pressed up against the door farthest away from the play park where the battle took place. The child's body is shaking almost as much as the Asset's does when first being unfrozen from cryo, only it for Potter it seems to be out of fear instead of the aftereffects of being frozen. The boy's respiration has increased by 6.2% from when the Asset held him briefly in the car, before the attacker showed up and the fight started, and it had already been 9% higher than average from the escorts handling him.

The Soldier leans into the car to grab Potter from the foot space, and the child lets out a terrified whimper, trying to curl into an even smaller ball on the car floor.

"'m sorry, sir!" The boy blurts as the Asset hoicks him up and prepares to settle the child against his hip. Apologizing is completely useless, a waste of breath- it hadn't worked on the boy's uncle, nor does it work on handlers. The boy still tries, for some reason. "I'm s-sorry."

The boy is not supposed to talk. The escorts ordered the Soldier to keep him quiet and still when handing him the child in the car. They are incapacitated, yet conscious.

The unpleasant new odor gross stronger when the Soldier brings Potter closer. The boy's tattered, stained shirt, which reaches his knees, has a dark spot from where it soaked through both the shirt and the shorts underneath.

Urinating in one's pants is not against mission protocol and does not require correction, even if it smells disgusting. But the handlers will be angry at the child if he constantly makes a mess, and will most likely punish him. It is not the boy's fault.

"Are you incontinent?" He asks the boy. That could be important intel to report.

Potter just stares uncomprehendingly.

"Do you know how to properly relieve yourself?" The Asset waits expectantly. Potter is clearly trying to work out an answer that will let him avoid punishment.

"Sorry, sir! I t-tried to hold it but I... hadda go to da bafroom." Potter does not directly answer the question, does not even seem to know what the question meant. "I only went b'fore dinner an' I c-couldn't hold it..." Before the dinner the boy had been forced to make yet had not been allowed to eat. That means the boy had not relieved himself since at least 1824 when the Asset first started surveying the house. It is now 2354.

Of course, the Asset has not relieved himself in those 5.5 hours either, but Potter is small and has an equally small bladder. The Soldier is fairly certain that Mr. Dursley would not have been happy had Potter urinated in the cupboard.

"Don't hit me, p-please, sir." Potter is sobbing again, although it sounds like he does not expect his plea about avoiding punishment to be granted. "I didn't mean to!

Not only is the boy is extremely emotional- emotions interfere with performance, any emotion is corrected by handlers or the chair- but Potter also seems to constantly leak unpleasant substances from various orifices. Earlier, he'd smeared the Soldier's flesh hand with tears and snot, the boy's shirt is crusty with dried mucus, as well as the spot of urine.

The Asset continues with the mission before he can malfunction more.

He takes the guns that the attacker had made fly out of the escorts' hands earlier. The escorts have no use for them when they're lying on the pavement stiff as logs.

He also grabs the half of the protein bar the boy had dropped on the ground. The Soldier has been taught not to waste food. While the Asset is fed adequately during missions to ensure optimum functioning, food is often withheld by handlers as a corrective measure during training and recalibration. They decide everything about his eating at the base, including if he eats at all.

The street is unhygienic and the boy's malnourished immune system is most likely weak, so instead the Asset shoves the remainder of the bar into his pocket to eat later, himself. His immune system can handle germs.

Then, they are on the move. The Asset jogs with Potter in his arms although most people are too slow to consider the pace is is moving at 'jogging'.

After 1.74 minutes of jogging, Potter makes a retching sound. The Soldier manages to turn him away before he regurgitates on the Soldier's kevlar vest. Bile and the meager contents of the boy's stomach splatter on Potter's bare feet and the ground. Potter's tiny frame shakes and the boy uses his shirt- which is already crusty with mucus from his crying and has small spots of dried blood on it from cuts caused by the plate shards- to wipe bile from his mouth.

The boy must be in good condition when he is delivered to the handlers. The shirt had been big on Potter when the Asset had first seen him, but it had been relatively clean. Now it is filthy and odorous, covered in urine, mucus, tears, blood and bile.

The handlers will not want a disgustingly smelly child.

The Soldier has not been cleaned since he was hosed off with a jet of cold water after being removed from the cryo tank 52.4 hours ago, but he has remained clean on this mission, even after the battle and hiding in a bush.

New mission sub-objective: acquire cleaner clothes for the boy that do not smell like urine and bile. In retrospect, he should have grabbed from some the Dursley residence before blowing it up, but he did not think it would be necessary. He did not know Potter was going to urinate.

"Please, don't send me back to Uncle Vernon an' Aunt Tuna!" The boy's voice is even more fearful and quiet than before.

"We are not going there." The Soldier tells him. That is both impossible and mission noncompliant.

"Really?" The boy makes it sound like it's too good to be true, as if he hadn't seen the house explode. The Asset does not answer, Potter should not need clarification. The handlers do not expect to have to repeat orders. The boy will have to listen and obey the first time, like he had when the Asset observed him with the Dursley's.

"Why?" The boy asks after 4 seconds of silence from the Asset, and Potter hastens to add "Sir?". The boy still tenses more in his arms, expecting punishment for the question.

"You are the mission." He replies.

"But... I'm not missin', I'm right here." Potter clearly does not understand.

"My mission is to deliver you to my handlers." The Asset states. "The mission will be completed."

Once he completes the mission, he will be wiped and the malfunctions will be fixed.

What HYDRA wants with Potter is not his concern. The Dursley's are not influential, there is no way Potter is a political prisoner. But there is not much use for such a small child. If they subject the child to painful medical experimentation, it should not matter.

The boy is small and unhealthy. What if HYDRA does not feed him properly? Surely they do not want the boy just to starve him.

The boy has already experienced correction by starvation at the hands of the Dursley's, as well as slaps and beatings. HYDRA will just be more severe. The Asset's chest should not have malfunctioned when watching the Dursley's, it should not be doing so now as he thinks this.

It does not matter. The boy should not matter. He is a mission, that is all. If the Soldier is ordered to kill the boy, he will do so.

The new mission protests him thinking that, throbbing in his head. _Protect._ It brings up an image of the scrawny blonde boy in an alleyway again, older and with a black eye. The Soldier growls slightly, the image gives him the urging need to protect. He is a weapon, meant to kill. He does not act as protection detail unless ordered to, which he does not remember ever happening.

He is malfunctioning again, with more visions and unexplained pains in his chest and stomach. Something is wrong with him.

He'd malfunctioned when the voice told him to turn and take Potter away, and when he had not handed Potter to the escort as ordered. He needs the chair, then the malfunctions will be fixed. The thought of the chair increases respiration and heart rate by 6%. He is not anywhere near the chair.

The unofficial mission's voice has gotten stronger, since the escorts have been immobilized, leaving the Asset alone to deliver the boy. The Asset could walk away without being stopped.

 _Deliver Potter._ Then it will be over.

"You're big an' strong an' dark... like Batman." The boy sighs tiredly and fiddles with a bit of the Asset's long hair. "You helped and heroes help so I think..." The sentence is interrupted by a yawn. "...maybe you're Batman."

" _Batman_ is not an authorized designation for the Winter Soldier." The Asset tells him flatly. Potter ignores that comment entirely.

"Sol-ders fight and don't let bad guys hurt people." Potter mumbles. "You didn't let 'em hurt me." It is unclear if he means the Dursley's, the escorts or the enemy asset who the Asset had defeated. Perhaps all of them, but Potter does not know about the Dursleys' demise.

The escorts had not been incapacitated for Potter's sake at all, despite what the boy seems to think. The Asset had still been in the backseat with Potter when it happened- does he know it was the attacker who did it? If the mission went according to plan, the escorts would be driving them back to the plane right now.

"You are not supposed to be talking." He mutters to the child, who flinches. "Go to sleep."

The Asset can be ordered to sleep on command, but he is fairly certain children are not the same way. The Dursley boy had proven this by putting up a huge fight about going to bed, and Mrs. Dursley had catered to her son's every whim and allowed him to stay up until he fell asleep watching mindless programs on the screen. Something in the Asset's brain tells him that this is abnormal for parents. Petunia had been Potter's handler but the Dursley boy's mother. Certainly handlers would never behave as Petunia Dursley had to her son, but she had treated Potter as a handler would.

The local time is 0016. The boy's adrenaline rush from the night's events seems to be wearing down finally.

As the Soldier walks, Potter falls asleep in his arms, the side of his small face resting against the metal shoulder, glasses askew on the boy's face.

First task: complete mission sub-objective of making Potter presentable.

At 0039 the Asset finds a store called Tesco with a parking lot that is empty but lit up. He does not walk through the lit space, instead staying in the shadows until he is as close as possible to the store.

Breaking into the store is only slightly more work than breaking into Number 4 Privet Drive had been, partly because he is holding a sleeping little boy. There are security cameras, but he disables them, destroying the evidence. Just like in the Dursley residence, the Soldier wears his night vision goggles instead of turning on a light and alerting any outsiders to his presence.

Threat assessment of the Tesco store: low. Lower than even the Dursley residence. There is nobody here who might be awoken aside from Potter. It is too early in the morning for trucks to start bringing produce or other goods. Even if someone does happen to find them here, the Asset will easily be able to handle them.

The carts have seats designed for children near the handles. The Asset plops Potter in one and wheels it past darkened aisles.

There are signs stating what is in each aisle. The Tesco store has more than just clothes, which is what he came for. For some reason, he didn't think stores carried so much stuff. It has food on one side, electronics and irrelevant things such as toys and books on another, clothes and household decorations and appliances in the middle.

The unofficial mission notes that it would be easy to obtain a lot of supplies that would make it easy to survive if he slipped away. The only thing he wouldn't be able to get is ammo for his guns. It tells him to take advantage of the supplies, grab food, take the boy far away.

What is wrong with him? He has never had a voice trying to change the mission before. Is it because he's been out of cryo for too long? That he needs the chair? Neither are an option right now.

The Asset forces himself to ignore the voice in his head and continues past the food, clenching his fists hard enough that the metal hand crushes the part of the cart handle it's wrapped around as he heads towards the footwear aisles. The boy is barefoot at the moment.

Choosing footwear temporarily distracts the Soldier from the missions battling in his head, although the prices (which he automatically tries to convert to American Dollars in his head for some reason) are obscenely high. One pair of toddler shoes is more than a month's rent money. Why did he think that? He does not pay rent.

Whoever thought to equip toddler shoes with lights that flash with every step probably did not have to worry about covert movement and avoiding detection, about there being no witnesses. Also they were a moron. The Asset does not choose light up shoes, and is glad that Potter is not awake to whine for them. Not that whining would do the boy any good.

In the end, the Soldier chooses waterproof "Wellington" boots for the boy, without any laces. This way if the boy regurgitates again, they will be easier to clean. The ones on display are, inconveniently, not the right size for the boy, so he has to hunt through the shoeboxes to find a pair that fits.

In the children's clothing section, the Asset grabs a shirt (not the shirt with the stupid-looking anthropomorphic blue locomotive on it) and holds it up to Potter for size. He discovers that Potter, despite having turned four under a month ago according to the mission briefing, is 11.5% smaller than the clothes designed for boys his age. The clothes designed for two or three-year-olds are more Potter's size.

Potter should not be so small. He is probably 6 kg lighter than his cousin had been, which at his age is a dangerously significant amount.

The Soldier finds a couple shirts without pictures, all of which appear green due to the night vision goggles, and throws them in the cart, along with pants, socks, and underwear. They apparently do not make plain toddler underwear, everything has some sort of pointless design or cartoon. He really hopes Potter knows how to properly relieve himself, but if not, there is an aisle with diapers.

Potter continues to sleep as the Asset pulls off the disgusting, large shirt and slips a new plain one over the boy's head of wild raven hair, maneuvering the boy's limp, skinny arms through the sleeves. For the pants, he has to lift Potter out of the shopping cart seat.

With the amount of fluids the boy leaks through his nose and eyes and how disgusting his shirt became, the Soldier considers finding a waterproof jacket for the boy.

Hunting through the racks of clothes, he finds one, but does not put it on the boy right now.

Mission sub-objective complete.

There is no reason for him to grab a hooded jacket from the men's section and slip it on, but the new mission's voice told him to. There is no reason to cover his prosthesis or hair, he should not disguise himself from his handlers. This is not part of the official mission.

As he starts to head towards the exit, pushing the cart past aisles of processed food, the new mission screeches orders to grab supplies. He malfunctions even more, turns the cart into an aisle with canned soup.

He knows he is malfunctioning, but he still puts cans of soup in his backpack. Mission sub-objective of the new mission is also complete. He should not be completing the new mission. It was not assigned by his handlers, it is contrary to the mission.

He is broken, he thinks again as he adds granola bars and bottled water to the stash in his backpack.

He grabs some juice for Potter, because the boy needs something after emptying his stomach. He is not sure if Potter had regurgitated because he could not handle the solid protein bar, so he will try liquids. The juice has nutrients, if not many calories.

Potter's sleep becomes fitful. He wriggles around, crying and making small, fearful noises of protest. He wakes with a gasp, tiny hand rubbing not his eyes but his forehead where the odd lightning bolt scar is. The boy gasps for breath in a way that is vaguely familiar to the Soldier although he has no idea why. The current respiratory problems are likely a result of fear, not asthma, although asthma is extremely familiar in his brain. But the Soldier does not know anybody with asthma.

Unlike the Soldier with his night vision goggles, Potter cannot see in the dark. He makes small, confused noises as he continues to shiver in fear, face again leaking tears. His knuckles are pressed into his mouth to stifle his sobs while he continues rubbing his scar as if it hurts. Had he sustained any damage to the area from Dursley's beating? That could affect his usefulness for HYDRA.

Potter is surprisingly quiet for a child who just had a nightmare, the Asset thinks, although he does not know how he knows this. Most children would scream and cry noisily.

The Asset looks at his backpack, stuffed with non-perishable food. This is not the mission. The mission does not require this much food, even now that he needs to make the trip back to the base without his escorts.

When he turns around, the sees that the boy is about to wipe his eyes and nose on the collar of the new shirt.

"Stop." The Soldier tells him. The child stills at the command, eyes wide and worried. "I do not want to change you again."

The child wipes his nose and eyes on the back of his hand instead of his shirt. Still disgusting, but he had followed orders.

Does the Asset have to give the child a bath? Will HYDRA simply hose Potter off as they do with him?

Potter reaches out blindly, blinking owlishly in the dark.

"... My strong sol-der man...?" The child murmurs hesitantly, as if he's not sure if he'd simply dreamed about the Soldier or not. Potter had used an incorrect pronoun. He is not a handler, therefore he cannot claim ownership of the Soldier. The boy sounds almost hopeful that the Soldier is there.

"I am not your Asset." The Asset corrects.

"A'set." Potter murmurs, smiling slightly when he hears the Asset's voice. This is new. He is merely a weapon, his targets certainly do not smile and neither do his handlers, not even when he successfully completes a mission. But Potter smiles, and has also called him _sir._ The child is strange. "A'set."

"You need to keep your clothes clean. You should be in the best condition possible when delivered to the handlers."

Grabbing the waterproof jacket from the cart, he starts to dress Potter.

"Wha?" Potter murmurs. "Not Dudley's..." The child voices his dawning realization that he's wearing different clothes, including boots. Distressed, he tries to shift around enough in the cart seat to remove the boots, but the handle is getting in the way.

He almost seems scared of the clothes. What can be distressing about clothes?

"Leave them on." The Asset orders.

"But Aunt Tuna says freaks don't d'serve new clothes." The boy makes a desperate attempt to pull off a boot. Potter seems unable to fully comprehend the notion of wearing clothes that did not once belong to the Dursley boy, of wearing clothes that actually fit him. "Freaks are un-g'ateful. Freaks ruin new things."

"Do not remove them." The Asset repeats. At least with Potter in the waterproof coat, the Asset does not need to worry as much about mucus getting on the boy's clothes.

37 seconds later, one of the "Wellington" boots hits the floor, having been kicked off. Potter seems to be malfunctioning, like the Asset, because he does not follow the orders.

The Asset bends down, slips it back on the boy's foot. He pokes a straw in a juice box and hands it to Potter. The boy looks at him in confusion, saying that juice is "only for Dudley" and that he himself only gets water when he's good.

The Asset orders him to drink it anyways, and Potter almost suspiciously puts the straw in his mouth.

He leaves the store at 0123 with his backpack and a few extra bags full of food and other supplies he is not authorized to have, and plans on stealing a car.

He chooses an car at a house with toys in the yard, because there is a car seat for small children in the back. Children are supposed to be in such seats when they are young, it optimizes safety.

Breaking into the car is simple, and Potter is limp enough that he does not protest being strapped into the child car seat. The seat does not look nearly as uncomfortable as the chair the Asset is subjected to.

The Asset knows how to hot-wire vehicles, and by 0140 he has successfully pulled the car out of the family's driveway.

The airport where the plane is at is only another seventeen minutes away.

 _Deliver Potter._ The mission tells him as he drives to the airport.

 _Drive far away._ The voice in the brain, the one he had started brokenly following in the food aisles, counters the official orders. _Do not return to the base._

His world is no longer as simple as following orders, because now there are two voices giving orders in his head, clashing with each other.

He realizes he's turned down a street that does not lead to the airport.

The Asset scowls and slams on the breaks, trying not to crush the steering wheel in his fists. The voice in his brain giving the unofficial orders needs to be silent and let him complete the mission in peace. He needs to turn around and go to the airport.

He needs major maintenance. He needs to be wiped. The chair will almost be a relief, because then there will be no more clashing orders. Everything will be as it should be.

But if he continues malfunctioning and following the false orders, he might not manage to complete the mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Bucky :) At least he's "he" again instead of "it".
> 
> Keep in mind that Bucky doesn't know that HYDRA already knows about magic. And HYDRA didn't know Mrs. Figg was there to call Dumbledore. They thought that, at most, they'd have to deal with muggle police. So that's why they didn't send wizards with Bucky.
> 
> Harry calling Bucky "My Soldier" is mostly because he thought he was made up in a dream.
> 
> I haven't forgotten about Snape, by the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kind of have no self control and keep working on this story instead of my other ones, probably because of the amount of feedback this is getting. Thanks everyone! So here's another chapter.
> 
> By the way, I have not forgotten about the code words seen in Civil War :)
> 
> I kind of wanted to write part of this from Harry's POV, but writing the POV of a four-year-old would be kind of hard, so we're sticking with the Soldier/Asset (and Snape).

When Severus comes to, his whole body aches with numerous pains and his mind throbs horribly in his skull. He'd much rather still be out of it right now.

The pain isn't as intense as the Cruciatus Curse, but Severus has physical injuries at the moment. There's a lump in the back of his head and his body is heavily bruised, especially his throat.

The memories flood back quickly. He's still laying on the dented slide that the long-haired man with the metal prosthetic arm had thrown him into. Severus' own body had been the thing to dent the metal slide, and there are a couple sharp parts poking into his body.

The boy. Potter. Where is he? Obviously, the muggles were kidnapping him, but for what purpose? Do they know how important he is to the wizarding world? The vast majority of muggles don't know about magic, of course, but it seems more than a little coincidental that they were going for the Boy Who Lived.

Severus gropes around for his wand and doesn't find it anywhere. He tries to wandlessly summon it with _Accio_ but still nothing happens. What in Merlin's name?

Had the attacker taken his wand?

The Potions Master sits up from his crater in the slide, aching body fiercely protesting the movement. Just in case, he scans the ground for any sign of his wand, in case the wandless charm simply hadn't worked.

No sign of it. Apparently it had been misappropriated by the attacker. Severus scowls furiously- being without his wand is the last thing he needs right now.

From the looks of it, the attacker is gone.

Potter is nowhere to be seen, as well. So that attacker had successfully kidnapped Potter and is Merlin knows where with the brat right now. Obviously, he hadn't taken the car that Severus disabled, but he could have made it a fair distance on foot by now- the man was inordinately fast- or perhaps even obtained another vehicle.

Either way, there is an incredibly slim chance of him finding the man, let alone catching up to him, without a wand.

This was not how Severus thought the night was going to go. He was hoping to find the Potter brat quickly and let Dumbledore find another home for him, since his relatives are indeed dead.

The two attackers he'd petrified are still laying motionless on the street. The situation is nowhere near as dire as if they had not been here. It should be simple to extract the location of wherever they were planning on taking the boy, which is presumably where their metal-armed associate is now. Without a wand, though, Severus cannot un-petrify them, or contain them if they try to run.

Sticking his wand arm out over the street, he summons the Knight Bus. If he had any other choice right now, he'd chose that instead of the Knight Bus.

The triple-decker purple bus can be used by Squibs like Mrs. Figg, so he doesn't need a wand to summon it. Also, the attacker had apparently decided to leave Severus' money with him. Perhaps he thought Galleons were fools' gold.

The triple-decker purple bus appears with a bang in the street, and the abandoned car and the two petrified goons' bodies are magically thrown out of the way of the bus.

The behemoth of a vehicle screeches to a stop without any regard to momentum. The conductor comes out while Severus starts to try to carry the two petrified kidnappers. His own aching body protests, and even if he was in his best condition it would be hard to carry the bulky men.

The conductor seems a little confused to be helping Severus with his 'baggage', but the Potions Master makes up a story involving copious amounts of Firewhiskey and stupid dueling bets.

Unfortunately, Severus has to buy tickets for the attackers as well. The Knight Bus is full of beds right now rather than its collection of mismatched chairs that it has during daytime. After shoving his two statue-esque captives onto beds, Severus sits on a third. There's no way he can sleep on this thing.

"Where to?" The conductor asks.

"The Leaky Cauldron." Snape replies, planning on using Floo powder from there.

The bus shoots forward at incredible speed and all the beds slide towards the back. Why they haven't applied sticking charms to them so they stay in place is completely beyond Severus. He scowls slightly, noting the gleam of terror in his petrified would-be kidnappers' eyes. It lessens his scowl slightly.

After a harrowingly reckless but thankfully quick ride in the bus, Snape and his two frozen captives are dropped off outside the Leaky Cauldron.

Severus Floo's to his office with the two captives, depositing them on the stone floor.

Dumbledore comes to Severus' office before he can even decide whether to call the Headmaster or not.

"Severus, where is Harry?" Dumbledore asks. "His new living arrangements have not been settled. Without the blood wards provided by his Aunt, he is in danger from Voldemort's supporters."

"He is in danger already." Severus informs the old man. "I was about to question these two, who were involved in an apparent kidnapping." He glares down at his petrified captives.

Potter had clearly been terrified. His scream, as well as the bout of accidental magic had made that obvious. And now he's with the most dangerous member of the group of three kidnappers.

Even though the boy is James Potter's son and Severus certainly doesn't like the brat, they need to rescue the boy. Who knows what's being done to him right now?

Hopefully these two can provide some answers.

The two goons groan loudly when they are un-petrified, stretching their stiff bodies. Severus debates conjuring ropes to bind them, but they are not a threat like the third one had been. They do not even have guns this time, since Severus had disarmed them.

"Do you know who the boy you were taking was?" Dumbledore asks them in a calm voice, as if this isn't an interrogation but a simple chat. Severus had been wondering the same thing- they're muggles, after all, what use do they have for the Boy Who Lived- but why hadn't Dumbledore immediately asked where Harry was?

The men pointedly remain silent.

"Where were you planning on taking the boy?" Severus demands harshly. Again, silence. Maybe it's time to break out the Veritaserum. That will get them talking.

"...Hail HYDRA" The two goons mutter, not quite simultaneously, before biting down on something in their mouths.

They almost immediately begin to experience what appear to be seizures and heart attacks at the same time. Severus grabs a couple of bezoars and crams them down the kidnappers' throats. Whatever poison they seem to have used is apparently incredibly fast acting, and they already seem mostly dead by the time he shoves the bezoars down their throats.

The bezoars work on whatever poison they seem to have used. The men gasp and shudder but are no longer at the brink of death.

They seem extremely confused when they realize they're still alive, and surprisingly ungrateful.

Severus pries open one man's mouth and sees a gap in his teeth along with remains of a fake tooth. Severus has read about suicide pills being used in Muggle militaries for people at a high risk of being captured. Are these two men with some sort of military? Why would they be interested in Potter?

From the looks of it, there are no more fake teeth with suicide pills.

Regardless, in a silky yet dangerous voice, Severus tells them "Don't try that again."

He stalks to his shelves and grabs a couple flasks of Veritaserum. The Ministry of Magic has strict regulations on the use of the truth-telling potion, but they do not need to know about this. Besides, these men will be obliviated once they have what they need, since they are muggles and shouldn't know about magic.

The men try to hold their mouths shut even though they most likely do not know what the potion does. Pinching one man's nose cures him of that, and Severus pours some of the truth-telling potion into the man's mouth and them clamps a hand over so he can't spit it out. The man reluctantly swallows, and Severus repeats the process with the other kidnapper.

"Why did you kidnap Harry Potter? Where were you taking him?" Severus demands.

"We were ordered to drive the Asset back to the airport once he extracted the Potter kid." The second kidnapper looks extremely shocked that those words just came out of his mouth. Snape smirks slightly when the other kidnapper sends that one a look telling him to be quiet.

"The Asset?" Dumbledore questions. Severus assumes that the kidnapper is referring to the infuriating man with the metal arm who had managed to somehow beat Severus in a duel.

"The Winter Soldier." The first man says, looking just as surprised as his companion had about blurting out what is obviously supposed to be classified information.

Yet, when they ask who the Winter Soldier is, the two don't have much information, other than that he was "malfunctioning" by appearing to be angry, as if the soldier wasn't supposed to even experience emotions, let alone show them. From the way they talk about him, it's clear the Soldier isn't even regarded as a person in their eyes.

They do reveal something vague about wiping the Soldier's memories with a chair, although apparently these two are never involved with it and are rarely involved with the Soldier at all. Since when had Muggles invented something that has the same effect as _Obliviate?_

One of the kidnappers speculates out loud, of course having no control over his tongue, that perhaps the Soldier might not have gone to the plane at all.

These kidnappers are not nearly as informative as Severus had hoped, and his chances of finding Potter are growing slimmer by the second.

* * *

The Asset should be aboard the plane by now instead of sitting in a parked car. It was a seventeen minute drive to his destination, and it has been twenty-two minutes. But at 0159, he'd realized was following the wrong orders and was not driving to the destination.

He sits unmoving in the parked car for 5.1 minutes, head throbbing as the battle between missions rages on in his mind without his consent. Not that his consent is ever considered for anything.

Weapons cannot give consent, they simply do what they are made to do.

Unless they defect.

_TURN AROUND. GO TO THE AIRPORT._

The mission pounds even louder in his head, practically shouting, as he sits in the unmoving car.

_DELIVER POTTER. RETURN TO HANDLERS FOR MAINTENANCE. COMPLETE THE MISSION._

The Asset cannot hear himself think over the blaring mission. That is good. His job is not to think, it is to complete assignments.

Even as he starts to put the car back in drive, the new mission once again counters the official mission. Unfortunately, it rises in volume to match the mission.

_NEGATIVE. MAINTAIN PRESENT ROUTE, DO NOT RETURN TO THE AIRPORT._

The two missions continue to argue, and the Soldier longs for the peace and quiet of having one set of orders to obey.

The Asset turns on the radio, trying to drown out the new voice in his head that he knows he's not supposed to obey. But the voice commands compliance, same as the official mission.

If he can just get rid of the unofficial voice long enough to deliver the boy, his handlers will fix him and everything will be quiet again.

He cycles through frequencies on the radio. Of course, none of them match the frequencies of HYDRA communication devices. Even if they did, the passwords have probably changed.

He cannot contact his handlers and tell them to come get him because he is defecting and jeopardizing the mission. They would surely punish him, but they would fix him, too.

A lot of the different radio stations blare noises that sound like young men being castrated. If it weren't for the screeching guitar riffs in the background (guitars do not sound like that at all, what is wrong with this), he would have wondered if he somehow picked up on frequencies from an interrogation room rather than what is probably supposed to be music.

The torture-music only makes his head throb more, and does nothing to overpower the voices, so he quickly skips past those stations. The weather and traffic reports at least hold useful information, although there is no traffic on this quiet side street.

 _TURN LEFT._ The mission directs at the next intersection.

 _TURN RIGHT._ The new voice counters, sounding just as commanding.

His hands want to yank the steering wheel left and right at the same time, and for a moment he wonders if he's going to try to do both and end up ripping the steering wheel apart.

Instead, he drives through the intersection without turning either way.

What's happening with the Asset isn't like a gun misfiring, it's worse, like a missile that veers off course, a missile that has been hacked. He's certainly not choosing to defect.

The escorts had obviously been worried about him malfunctioning when he had reported the odd feeling in his chest and the visions of the skinny blonde person (he'd been a child in one vision, but a man in another). The Soldier had not reported the contradicting, unauthorized orders. They hadn't been orders then, just a small voice that, up until an hour ago, he had been able to ignore.

The path their car travels reflects the battle in the Soldier's mind. He speeds towards the airport a few times- the Soldier's job is to complete the mission- but he always malfunctions and changes routes before he can even see the landing area or the HYDRA plane.

Even if he reached the plane, he is broken enough that he might not fly it to the base.

In the backseat, Potter alternates between dozing and staring out the window, juice box sitting in the cupholder on the child car seat. At one point he points a tiny finger to the window and says something about a purple bus. The Asset briefly wonders if the child is hallucinating, because he appears to be awake instead of dreaming. But children have wild imaginations, so perhaps it is simply that.

The boy looks as if he expects to be shouted at for imagining a purple bus. HYDRA would not like nonsense like that, but at the moment it does not matter.

Somehow, the Asset drives farther away from the airport. His head throbs harder, as if punishing him for going rogue. The mission-noncompliance on his part is not intentional.

_RESET REQUIRED._

He cannot reset himself, cannot give the trigger words to himself. Handlers are required. Until he gets to the chair or his handlers, his malfunctioning will continue.

The Asset's mind aches horribly, but in a different way than it does after the chair. It's too full now, and the fighting missions have exhausted him mentally. After the chair, his mind is always empty, waiting to be filled with the next mission.

His body is now shaking involuntarily, in a manner similar to when he gets out of cryo, but not quite as bad because at least now everything isn't freezing. If anything, he's currently warm, but that is almost a welcome change.

At 0626, the Asset finds himself stopped outside a building next to some hills a little ways off the road. The hills appear to have some sort of pulley system on them, although they don't look like they'd support particularly heavy cargo.

Unless this is a HYDRA base, he has been following the unofficial mission that he should have disregarded.

Admittedly, HYDRA is fond of having bases out in the middle of nowhere, but a HYDRA base would most likely not be advertising itself as a place to go skiing. Unlike some bases, this is not too far off from civilization in the first place, but the hills make it seem a little more isolated.

The place appears abandoned, which would make sense if it really is a ski slope. It is August, there is no snow.

He sweeps the area for any kind of bugs or surveillance equipment anyways. There is one camera on the hill, but that is it.

Some more quick but thorough reconnaissance on the Soldier's part confirms that this is not a HYDRA base, it is indeed just a small ski establishment. There is no tank or chair here for him, just a lodge and hills.

That should be his cue to leave, not to go into the lodge, but he can't control himself. He keeps trying to deliver Potter like he should, but it still doesn't work. His handlers will be furious, as they should be. He will deserve whatever punishment they give him, will take it without protest as he always does.

If he does not deliver Potter to his handlers, as the new mission is instructing, what is he supposed to do with the child? Potter will surely die if left here on his own. What is the final objective of this unauthorized mission? If there is no report to handlers, no cryo tank, does this false mission even have an end?

 _Keep away from HYDRA._ The voice says it as if he's not only supposed to keep the child away, but that he's supposed to stay away, himself. The thought is almost incomprehensible.

The mission sounds louder in his head as if in protest. _RETURN TO BASE. DELIVER THE PACKAGE. REPORT DEFECT._

Are his handlers looking for him, now that he is not at the base with the boy? He should not have made it so difficult for them to find him.

The Soldier does not choose to ignore the mission and malfunction yet again, but he does.

He unbuckles a sleeping Potter from the car seat and grabs the backpack and bags before heading towards the lodge. The locks are simple, of course, but he locks the door behind him. The likelihood of anyone- including HYDRA- finding them here is low, and there is nobody inside the building.

The only challenging part about this mission so far is that he keeps defecting, because this is not the actual mission.

The main part of the lodge's interior is split into a large sitting area with several couches and fireplaces and a dining area obviously meant to seat many people. The kitchen is split off by the door. Towards the back are several bedrooms for guests, each with an attached bathroom.

The Asset puts the food down on one of the tables and then enters a bedroom. He sets the sleeping boy down on the bed. Potter is sucking on his thumb of one of his bandaged hands in his sleep. He is not a baby, but he is still quite young at only four years and twenty-two days. He looks even younger than his true age.

He pulls off the boy's coat and boots and old glasses, leaving Potter in the rest of the new clothes.

Although changing Potter's clothes helped, the boy is still dirty. His small face is still encrusted with dried tears and snot, and his mouth has bits of bile around it along with the new addition of dried apple juice from the box the Soldier gave him in the store.

Bathing the child will have to wait. Potter is asleep, and the Soldier is functioning at only 58%, which is well below acceptable levels.

The Soldier does not remove his tactical vest, but he does remove his stolen hooded sweatshirt and his weapons (including the escorts' guns).

He carefully arranges his weapons He stretches out on the floor beside them, near the door. If something threatens them, he cannot waste time gathering his things.

A bed would be too comfortable to sleep in. He does not know the last time he slept in a bed, or if he ever has.

This is at least 9000% better than cryo, and he even has a roof over his head. It's a little hot, but heat is preferable to cold.

Set sleep: 4 hours. His head continues to pound with exhaustion from the internal battle between missions, so it is easy to obey that order, even if it is given by the new voice in his head instead of his handlers.

He wakes 2.4 hours later when something thumps. Dreams of perching in trees with sniper rifles quickly disappear as he becomes alert to his surroundings.

The Soldier is up in an instant, grabbing a knife with his flesh hand and a gun with his prosthetic hand, scanning the room for signs of danger. Sunlight streams through the window, negating the need for night vision goggles.

Potter is sitting on the floor, evidently having fallen from the bed, except the Asset had made sure to put him in the center to try to ensure that did not happen. Did the child really move around enough to make it to the edge and fall off in his sleep?

Wide green eyes stare at the Soldier in terror. Then the boy scrambles to his feet and flees towards the wardrobe, crawling inside it and shutting the door behind him.

After ensuring there is no threat, the Asset holsters his weapons and pulls the wardrobe door open. The boy is shaking with his head buried against his knees, probably getting mucus and tears all over his pants. The Asset cups the boy's head and lifts it to prevent the boy from soiling these new clothes so soon.

"I-I just waked up there, sir... I d-didn't mean to be in the bed!" Potter stammers out. Of course he woke up there, that is where the Asset put him.

He looks at Potter carefully. The fall would be negligible for even a standard adult, but the bed is taller than Potter. The Soldier would not be surprised if the boy was bruised after that fall. "Status report."

Potter stares at him in utter confusion, mouth hanging open slightly. Perhaps the boy's previous handlers, the Dursley's, had not asked him for status reports.

The Asset tries again, wondering how often he will need to reword statements for the child to comprehend them. HYDRA would punish the boy for not understanding. "Are you injured?"

"N...no...?" The answer more confused than unsure. "I really don't 'member going in the bed, sir. 'm sorry."

"I put you there." The Soldier answers. Why is Potter panicking about being in a bed?

This is met by Potter staring at him as incredulously as if he'd just told the boy that he was a ballet dancer instead of a soldier.

"But... you were on the floor, sir." Potter ventures quietly, as if it should have been the other way around. "It's your bed. I wasn't s'posed to be there."

"Not mine. The bed's too soft." The Asset grunts. After a bit, he asks a question that has been in his mind since he first found the boy. He's normally not allowed to ask questions without permission, but he's already defecting to an enormous degree

"Why do you address the Asset as _sir_?" He do not deserve honorifics, but Potter keeps using it.

"Uncle Vernon says I haf'ta be r...respekful to normal people."

The idea of the Soldier being normal is almost laughable, but the Soldier never laughs, or even smiles. If he did, he would be punished, perhaps even wiped. Does Potter actually consider a highly-trained assassin with a prosthetic left arm normal?

"I forgot your name is A'set, sir." Potter apologizes in his usual quiet voice. The only time the child had been loud was when the escorts grabbed him.

The Asset does not have a name, merely designations such as thator _Winter Soldier,_ but he does not correct the boy. It does not matter if Potter thinks it is his name.

The Asset reaches in to grab the boy, who tenses up as usual, but relaxes just a second sooner. When the boy realizes that he's being carried back to the bed, he squirms.

"No. Freaks don't get beds like normal people." Potter says as if the Asset is missing something obvious.

Why does the child keep referring to himself as a freak? Admittedly, the child is not normal- he is underweight and far quieter than his cousin had been- but _freak_ does not seem to be an accurate descriptor.

Potter scrambles back to the wardrobe as soon as he is set down. The Asset had observed the elder Dursley throwing the boy in the cupboard under the stairs, and the boy had been sleeping in there. Perhaps the spare bedroom with all the broken toys had not been Potter's, and the small boy had spent his whole life in the cupboard whenever he was not needed.

Once again, it reminds the Asset of how he is put in cryo when his handlers have no use for him.

If Potter wants to sleep in the wardrobe, the Asset should not care.

But Potter does not sleep. Instead, the child suddenly looks scared again, as if he's just remembered he's done something wrong. "You're up. I'm s'posed to make breakfast but Aunt Tuna didn't wake me 'cos this isn't my cupboard."

Did Petunia Dursley assign Potter all the cooking duties when he isn't even big enough to reach the stove properly? Furthermore, how often had Potter been allowed to eat the food he was made to prepare?

"I can make eggs, an' bacon and black puddin' and toast. But I made a big mess wid-da pancakes last time." The boy shudders, probably remembering whatever punishment had been doled out for that. He seems to regret mentioning the mess, as if he'll be punished again for bringing it up.

The Asset does not remember being four, but he doubts he was let near anywhere near a lit stove, let alone made to use one.

He wonders if he'd been four years old with that scrawny blonde boy from his vision or not.

After a bit, Potter glances hesitantly up at the Asset. "What do you want to eat, Mister A'set, sir?"

The Asset is never offered choices about anything, including what he eats. When he's with his handlers, whether he eats at all is entirely dependent on if his handlers are angry at him, and when he is allowed to eat, they decide what, when, and how much.

Potter clearly shares that experience. At least the Asset was not forced to cook food and serve it to his handlers while his own stomach growled with hunger, like he'd witnessed Potter doing last night. The thought makes the Asset feel like he's boiling inside, with another chest malfunction, but he has not sustained any actual injury or ailment, to his awareness.

"Tank you, for the juice." Potter suddenly says, ducking his head.

"Come," The Asset instructs after gathering up the rest of his weapons and tucking them in their holsters. He opens the door and sees the coast is clear, although he wasn't really expecting anybody to have found them here.

Potter follows him out of the bedroom obediently. He'd been asleep when they arrived earlier this morning, so this is his first time looking at the lodge.

"Is this your house?" He asks, seemingly before he can stop himself.

"No." The Asset replies. Potter frowns slightly in confusion but doesn't ask any more questions as he follows the Asset to the large dining area.

Once there, the boy immediately looks around, clearly expecting to be forced to cook something and wondering what to make. He glances up at the Asset expectantly, but the Asset just strides over to the bags on the table and starts pulling out the food he misappropriated from the store.

The Asset had not realized he'd grabbed so much, or that he'd have so many choices. There are packaged muffins and fruits, granola bars, canned soups, and a lot more food that the Asset doesn't entirely remember taking. Even bread, in clear wrapping.

There are no handlers telling him what to eat, or that he is authorized to eat in the first place. He was not authorized to obtain this food, but he is not authorized to be here, either.

The Soldier stares at the assortment of food.

Picking food for Potter is easy. The boy had not been able to stomach the protein bar last night (part of that could have been from being bounced around while the Asset jogged) but has kept the juice from the very early hours of this morning down. The Asset opens a can of soup by poking through the top with his metal hand and then tearing the lid off. The soup is lukewarm.

Potter does not seem to mind, does not even seem to think he is allowed to eat it as the Asset passes the can to him.

He did not get spoons from the Tesco store, but he finds some in the kitchen, along with bowls.

"Soup?" Potter asks, as if eating it at breakfast is ridiculous. The child quickly covers his mouth.

"Yes, Potter." The Asset replies. Hopefully the boy can feed himself without making a mess, but the Asset will spoon-feed him if required. "You are underweight."

This gets him another blank look from the boy.

"Potter?" The boy asks as if he doesn't even know his last name, or maybe he's just confused that he's being called that. The Dursley's had mostly called him 'boy' last night.

"Your name is Harry James Potter." The Asset replies. Something about the name _James_ is familiar in a way he does not understand. Examining that thought no further, he pushes the bowl with a little bit of tomato soup towards the boy. Potter's stomach is undoubtedly small and cannot hold the whole can's worth, and the Asset is not going to waste the rest. "Eat."

"But I didn't make you bweakfast." Potter tells him. The Soldier orders him to eat anyways.

Potter seems completely confused, but doesn't put up any further protest as he eats his first spoonful, only spilling a little. His eyes widen when he tastes the first spoonful of tomato soup, eyes closing in bliss as he lets out a slight moan.

He is clearly trying to be careful to avoid spilling the soup, but sometimes some sloshes off the spoon and onto the table. The boy is at least leaning over the table so it doesn't fall on his lap.

"You're not eating..." Potter remarks. "What do you want me to make you?" This child clearly does not retain knowledge without being told multiple times. It is almost a good thing he is not at HYDRA right now. If the Soldier needs to repeat simple things like the boy not needing to make him breakfast, than HYDRA will need to repeat things and they will be angry with the boy. The boy will get hurt when they are angry.

The Asset cannot choose what to eat himself, because he does not choose anything. He did not even choose to defect, because he knows he shouldn't. He should leave this place, take Potter to his handlers and fall to his knees to accept whatever the punishment is before being wiped and probably punished after as well.

He'd eaten a protein bar yesterday evening, but that had been provided by his escorts.

For unknown reasons, his hand hovers over a plum. Plums are a good source of Vitamin C, and they are in season in England in August.

Slowly, he takes the plum and eats it, and then a processed muffin. The Asset is not supposed to have opinions about things, but they are both infinitely preferable to protein bars.

When Potter is done, he has some soup smeared around his mouth, and he is still somewhat dirty from before. The Soldier vaguely remembers thinking earlier this morning that the boy needed a bath.

When he tells the boy this, Potter starts to whimper. From the boy's babbled explanation about only Dudley getting baths, he learns that Potter's aunt had given the boy cold showers. Potter mumbles something about how his "Aunt Tuna" was going to give him a haircut soon, too, and he's obviously not fond of those either.

The Asset leads the reluctant boy to the bathroom attached to the room they'd slept in and removes Potter's clothes. At least the new clothes have stayed fairly clean.

The Soldier doesn't think showers hurt nearly as much as the hose his handlers use on him, but the boy is shaking so much at the prospect that he ends up filling the bathtub with water.

As he bathes the boy, Potter curiously pokes at the Asset's prosthesis as if that arm is not a weapon that can kill him with ease. As if the Asset is not the same thing.

It is... odd. People are either scared of him or order him around. Sometimes they are both, but Potter is neither, and has given the Soldier a few more small smiles this morning.

Even though it is very inefficient and somewhat messy, he does not stop Potter from splashing in the bath. The water doesn't splash high enough to go out of the tub, but it does get the Asset's tac vest and rolled-up sleeves slightly damp.

When the boy is once again clean, the Asset leaves the water in the tub. The idea of not wasting it seems almost instinctual. He can use it for himself, later, he thinks, as he dresses the boy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to decide if Snape was going to capture the HYDRA goons or if HYDRA was going to send people to capture him... hope you like the choice I made :)
> 
> Okay, I'm seriously going to try and update my other story before updating this again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of short, but hopefully kind of fun.

Taking care of a child should be simple. All that's required for looking after Potter is feeding him, making sure he's clean, and making him sleep.

Yet Potter is old enough that these things are not a constant process. The boy doesn't loudly wail and demand feeding every few hours like an infant would. Somehow the Asset knows that is what infants do, despite not having any experience with caring for them.

So far, Potter has not asked for food at all, instead simply waiting for the Asset to give it to him and assure him he can eat it. If it were the Dursley boy the Asset was looking after, there probably would have been a thousand demands in these past 11.2 hours, 98% of which probably could have been ignored. Unlike Potter, that boy did not need extra nourishment.

Potter probably will not need to be fed again for a few more hours.

The Asset dries the boy's messy, black hair and realizes that it is untamable as it continues to stick up in every direction. He checks the boy's injuries. The cuts from the plate have healed a surprising amount, as if the boy is has slightly enhanced healing himself.

"Tank you." The boy thanks him for the bath, or perhaps bandaging him, as if it was a gift. He had done the same thing with the food earlier this morning.

Fortunately, the boy knows how to properly deposit bodily wastes in a toilet, despite having an accident sometime in the escorts' car when the Asset was fighting that enemy asset who wielded the weaponized stick. Potter demonstrates this ability after the bath. He almost doesn't pull his pants up when he's done, as if he can't bring himself to dress himself in new clothes, so the Asset hoicks them up.

"Try not to urinate in your pants, Potter." The Soldier says, remembering last night.

"Yessir." The boy nods quickly. "I don't need nappies, but I'm not a big boy like Aun' Tuna told Dudley when he went potty."

"You are undersized, Potter." The Asset agrees. The boy's eyes light up again when his surname is used.

"Did...did you knowed my Mummy and Daddy?" The Asset catches just a glimpse of the boy's wide, hopeful green eyes, before Potter immediately ducks his head and stammers out an apology. His parents seem to have been a forbidden subject with the Dursley family.

"It's _did you know._ " The Asset corrects. He does not know the answer to that question, does not even know who the boys parents are, or were. He could have been sent to kill them. The fact that he doesn't remember a previous target named Potter is meaningless- he's not always told his targets' names.

Maybe Potter's parents were influential somehow, and the boy would gain HYDRA some political favor? What other use would the boy be for them?

It does not matter, it is not the Soldier's place to question the reasoning behind his missions. Even when he is delaying the mission, such as now.

"Aun' Tuna says my mummy an' daddy died in a caw cwash." Potter mumbles, mispronouncing the last two words. The Asset remembers the vision of the mission where he'd made the targets' deaths look like a car accident, but somehow he doesn't think those targets were this boy's parents.

"I did not know them." The Asset answers eventually. The child looks slightly disappointed.

Feeding and bathing Potter have only taken up 56 minutes, leaving a large amount of time with no discernible objective.

_DELIVER THE BOY._

He should, but he doesn't. It is still unclear why, aside from the fact he is defective.

"What d'you want me to do, Mr. A'set, sir?" Potter asks as the Asset rewraps the bandages around Potter's tiny hands. The Asset suspects that the late Mrs. Dursley made Potter clean as well as cook. From what he observed, the Dursley boy never lifted a finger to help. "Cleaning?"

They have not been here long enough for the ski resort to get dirty, aside from Potter dribbling soup on the table earlier, which is already cleaned up. None of their food requires cooking, and it seems pointless to send the boy out to cut the grass with a pair of scissors like he reportedly did at the Dursleys' residence. Furthermore, it is odd that Potter is asking about cleaning when his old clothes were filthy with tears and mucus.

"There are no chores for you to perform, Potter." The Soldier tells him.

The boy nods and shuffles off.

The Soldier follows and watches the boy enter the wardrobe he'd been hiding in earlier. The Dursley's clearly used the cupboard under the stairs as a place to store Potter when they had no use for him, but it is inferior to the cryo tank in that he is still conscious and requires basic things like food when not being used. Not that the Dursley parents had fed Potter adequately, despite drastically overfeeding the Dursley boy.

The Soldier pulls the boy out of the wardrobe, since he needs to keep an eye on him. The boy starts asking about what chores he should perform again, seeming lost at the idea of not being given work to do. It had been the same earlier, when the boy thought he had to cook breakfast.

The Asset knows that feeling all too well at the moment. He's still not sure what he's doing right now.

"Stick by me." The Asset orders, although his voice is still quiet. He has much more experience obeying orders than giving them. "Unless I tell you not to. Do as I say."

"That's it?" Potter asks, although he nods in acquiescence to the instructions. "But, that can't be it. I haf'to earn my keep. Can't be a lazy boy, 'cos t'en you'll send me back to da Dursleys." The boy looks at him fearfully.

The Soldier presses his lips together in annoyance. What does he need to say to get Potter to retain the information that he cannot go back to the Dursley's? He could just tell the boy he killed the Dursley family, but for some reason, he doesn't. "You are not going back. Stop thinking that."

The boy looks at him as if he doesn't really believe it, clearly thinking the Soldier will redact that sometime. "But I'm a ung'ateful freak."

He is far from ungrateful, and 'Freak' is still an unclear designation for the boy. The Asset remembers in the store in the very early hours of the morning, Potter had said something about freaks being ungrateful and not deserving new clothes, presumably something that was said to the boy himself. Yet the boy is extremely grateful for almost everything the Soldier does simply to keep him alive.

At least wanting to be useful would serve Potter well with HYDRA. After all, the Asset's handlers always find some sort of use for the Soldier when he is not in cryo, even if it is making sure he will obey by supplying correction.

Currently, Potter is not nearly as useless as the defective Soldier.

The child follows the Soldier out to the main sitting/dining area as ordered and stands unobtrusively off to the side. Most children his age probably would not be able to stay still for so long while not doing anything.

The Asset is very good at staying motionless while observing his surroundings. He has had missions with a lot of waiting. He had sat motionless in a hedge for almost five hours last night, but that was part of the mission.

He chooses the ideal angle to see out the window while minimizing the ability of outsiders to see him in return and watches for any sign that somebody will stumble across them in this ski lodge. They remain undisturbed, but that will not be the case forever.

HYDRA is surely looking for him. The Asset is too valuable an asset to just let go. Or, normally he is. His value might be lower now that he's malfunctioning, but they will be able to fix him.

 _COMPLETE THE MISSION. COMPLETE THE MISSION._ The mission keeps blaring in his head, reminding him to leave now that the boy is fed and bathed, that the punishment will only get harsher the longer he delays.

"Do you want me to shine your shoes, sir?" The boy asks uncertainly after 2.9 minutes of silence, as if he doesn't have as much experience with polishing shoes as cooking and isn't sure whether he should be speaking up at all.

The Soldier looks down at his combat boots, which are not shoes in the first place. They are not particularly dirty, yet they are not completely clean either. Nor is there any reason for them to be clean.

"No." The Asset murmurs.

Potter whispers something about 'Aunt Tuna' being mad about dirt.

At 1350 the Soldier prepares a late lunch for Potter, since they had a late breakfast ("I'm s'posed to cook" Potter protests again when he sees the Soldier preparing the meal).

Potter ends up preparing a meal for the Asset, and the Asset stops the boy from frying bacon on a stove, despite clearly knowing how to do it. The boy's hand is still damaged from Vernon Dursley pressing Potter's hand into the stove yesterday evening.

Potter passes the Soldier a plate with bread and marmalade and another plum. He insists the Asset eat it before he eats. His functionality is still within acceptable parameters, no nourishment is required, but the Asset eats it anyways.

Not because the boy ordered him to- the boy is definitely not a handler or similar superior- but because he will not waste it.

The meal the Asset prepared for the boy has not only some soup like breakfast, but a few crackers (or 'butter biscuits for children', as they're labelled on the package). The crackers/biscuits are shaped like anatomically-incorrect animals that bare little resemblance to real animals.

Potter still seems shocked that he is allowed to eat, especially the animal crackers, and he stares at the Soldier with wide green eyes until he is given permission to eat. Apparently only the Dursley boy got so-called "fun" food like animal-shaped crackers.

Potter clearly enjoys them, and starts to make animal noises as if the crackers are alive. "Rawr, rawr." The child lets out a quiet, playful roar as he moves an animal cracker that vaguely looks like a tiger. He looks up at the Soldier as if he'd been caught doing something naughty by playing with his food and quickly bites off the tiger's head.

The boy casts a longing glance at the bag of crackers when he finishes the first few, and the Asset gives him more once it's clear they're not coming right back up. Potter gives the Asset the biggest smile yet, as if he's the greatest person in the world, instead of a deadly assassin, simply for giving him more crackers. That smile makes the chest malfunction in a way that's different from the previous errors.

At the end of the meal, the boy is still clutching three crackers- a lion, a seal and a bear. He seems to think the Soldier will take them from him at any moment. Even though he hunches over them protectively, he probably would not fight back if the Soldier tried to take them from him.

The Soldier lets him keep them and the boy clutches the crackers, though he occasionally continues to play with them as if they're toys. He stands just a bit closer to the Soldier than before lunch.

At 1410, the Asset turns on the screen in the bedroom they'd slept in, while Potter crawls into the wardrobe. It does not matter right now, the Asset can still see the wardrobe, so Potter is still staying close by as he was told to do.

There is a screen in each bedroom, as well as three in the large sitting area of the ski lodge. The pictures are not projected on the screen, but are projected from the screen itself.

Some part of him thinks it remarkable that the pictures are in color, and that the screens are in ordinary places like this. It is a very odd thought, because the Asset has seen television screens before. The Dursleys had a few in their home, but he doesn't think that was the first time he saw them.

At first, the screen shows a segment about deodorant, and then, once he switches the channel, some mindless program featuring those stupid anthropomorphic locomotives. He changes the channel again, quickly.

'BBC News' is currently doing a report on the so-called tragic gas fire that took Vernon, Petunia and Dudley Dursleys' lives when it exploded their house. Just as the Asset predicted, it seems the reporter had no clue that Potter was there at all.

Of course, they don't know the Soldier started the explosion with the oven.

The news also mentions the stolen car and burgled Tesco store from the early hours of this morning, which means the authorities will be looking for the car, which means driving it around more would be stupid.

The car is almost out of gas anyways, since he drove it around for 4.8 hours earlier rather than only 17 minutes. In fact, he might not have enough to make it to a gas station anyways, and stealing gas in daylight would be even trickier than stealing it at night.

If Potter is hearing and processing what the screen is saying about the house blowing up, he does not comment from within the wardrobe.

The Asset debates staying here for a bit. It is a fairly good base of operations, although he is not supposed to be here and the mission is constantly pounding in his head to return the boy to the base.

Despite his enhanced hearing, the continual battling inside his head, coupled with the noise from the news report, mean he doesn't hear the footsteps outside until they are near the lodge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, is it HYDRA? Snape? Teens looking for a deserted place to party and/or do drugs?
> 
> I know Harry hasn't done any magic aside from accidentally blowing up the street lights. Although his magic might be helping him heal quicker than normal.


	6. Chapter 6

As soon as he hears the footsteps (he should have heard them earlier) the Soldier vaults over the bed to grab the rest of his weapons while simultaneously pulling out some of the knives stashed on his body.

The screen is now reporting the weather as if he can't just look out the window and see that it's rainy, with clouds indicating a good chance of a storm coming.

Potter is still hiding in the wardrobe. The Asset opens the door. The boy evidently does not realize what is happening, has not heard the footsteps. Had he been listening to the news? Had he understood the news about his relatives' demise? He had seen the house explode when the Asset took him, but does not seem to understand that the Dursley's are dead and he will not be returned to their care.

Potter smiles up at the Asset, still clutching the animal crackers. Why does the boy keep smiling at him? Why do smiles do weird things to the chest?

The Asset is about to lift the boy out, but glimpses the figure outside the bedroom window out of the corner of his eye. It's a man, armed with a gun. The Soldier does not recognize this man.

The man aims the gun at him through the window. The Soldier shuts Potter back in the wardrobe instead of pulling him out, and orders the boy to stay in there until further notice. He is almost certain the boy will obey. The boy is not perfect at obedience, but he has stayed put whenever the Soldier told him to.

Fighting without Potter in his arms will be significantly easier, Potter is safer in the wardrobe.

The Asset presses up against the wall by the window, trying to get the best tactical advantage against whoever is outside. He sees a black van parked at the other end of the lodge, near the window by the fireplace in the large sitting room. Presumably the mysterious man's. It is not the car that the Asset stole at 0140 this morning, or the car the escorts had been in. Even his enhanced hearing did not detect the sound of it driving up, just like he hadn't heard the footsteps over the noise of the news report and his internal battle until just a few seconds ago.

Dealing with the man outside will be easy. Simply jump out the window, block some bullets with his metal arm, take the guy out.

Return to grab Potter and the supplies. Relocate.

_RETURN TO BASE. DELIVER HARRY JAMES POTTER._

The plates on the Soldier's prosthetic arm shift. He's a highly trained assassin, he will not lose to the man outside the window. The man will not harm Potter.

The Soldier grabs his gun in his flesh hand.

_марионетка_

A code word has been given, but not from the man standing on the other side of the glass. It sounds like a recording being played back at a loud volume.

Code word accepted.

It is not the total reset, which requires a string of words. Ordinarily, he would need to obey whoever gives it, but it is a recording, not a person.

The Asset pauses without lowering the knife.

The front door of the lodge is busted open. Four more people swarm in- three men, one woman- all brandishing guns and shouting. None of them are the Asset's normal handlers, nor are they the escorts who had been sent with it before being incapacitated by the enemy asset with the weaponized stick.

The recording is still playing on loop, and some of the men are shouting the word too.

"Marionetka, marionetka!" They shout with the recording. The pronunciation is not vastly different from the English translation of the word, but they all have British accents and clearly are not fluent in Russian.

The recording is not of these people. All the same, they have the code word and are therefore superiors, even if the Asset has no recollection of ever seeing them before. Perhaps they are local sleeper agents for HYDRA.

It is not the Asset's place to question who they are. The Asset only needs to obey.

"Soldier, stand down." One of the male agents says, in English, still with a British accent.

An order. An official order.

_OBEY._

The Soldier stands down. It follows orders, as it is meant to do. For the moment, the Soldier is functioning within acceptable parameters, unlike the past 13.5 hours.

Despite the fact the Soldier has lowered its weapons and is standing obediently and submissively, the agents eye it warily.

"Look at this." The bearded man scoffs and gestures towards the food. The box of animal crackers is still sitting on one of the tables in the dining area. His eyes fall to the bedroom.

"The Asset was going rogue. Trying to hide with the boy. Like he likes the stupid kid." They are talking about the Soldier as if he is not capable of hearing them, or not present in the room. This is common.

The bearded man is correct about the Asset malfunctioning. He is incorrect about the boy being stupid.

"Good thing they put a tracker in the the metal arm." A blond man- not at all like the one from the strange visions- says, glancing at the appendage. It is currently visible, as the Soldier is not wearing the stolen hooded sweatshirt.

So that is how they found the Soldier. He hadn't known there was a tracker in its prosthesis, but there was no reason to be told. A weapon doesn't know what its made of.

"Shut it." One of the other agents hisses at the one who'd muttered about the tracker, as if that was classified information. Will that agent be punished for revealing it?

The Asset is not permitted to do anything with this new knowledge of the tracker. He certainly isn't permitted to remove the tracking device, not that it would be easy to remove from his own prosthesis.

After he is wiped, the Soldier will not even remember there is a device in the arm.

"What did you do with the other escorts?" The woman demands, standing 3.3 m away.

"An enemy asset seemed to petrify them with a weaponized stick, which allowed him to do things like teleport. The escorts were useless to the mission when they were incapacitated." The Asset reports tonelessly. "The enemy asset was successfully neutralized with little damage to the Asset." The Asset does not fetch the weaponized stick from the backpack for them, but gestures to it. They seem worried about the gesture, as if it is the start of an attack.

"Why are you here?" The bearded man questions, but before the Asset can respond, the female follows up with a second question.

"Where is the Potter brat?"

"Wardrobe." The Soldier murmurs. Part of him does not want to provide this intel.

One of the agents, the tall one, strides into the bedroom wrong bedroom, mutters something about "even watching the bloody telly, who does he think he is", and yanks the wardrobe door open.

Inside, Potter tries to stifle terrified noise and shrink into the corner of the wardrobe, obviously wanting to disappear. The agent reaches in and picks him up. Potter stiffens fearfully in the man's arms, and the animal crackers he's been clutching in his bandaged hands crumble apart and fall to the floor.

The tall agent brutally pulls Potter's messy black hair away from his face to confirm that there is indeed that odd lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. One of the highly-identifiable traits of the target, the Soldier had been told at the briefing.

The boy's eyes green well up with tears, and he lets out a quiet gasp. It's obvious he's experienced with pain from his time with the Dursley's. Not only is the tall man yanking on his hair, he's also jostling the abrasions from the beating the boy had received last night.

"Stop." The Soldier does not know why it says it, but _stop_ is what the false mission in the head is blaring. The Soldier is not allowed to give orders, except perhaps to the boy. But he says it to the superiors in the room, and the metal arm's plates shift again, as if preparing for a battle the Soldier is not allowed to fight.

"Stand down!" The man holding Potter sounds very worried. Perhaps they think he took out the escorts. But he is not capable of completely immobilizing people like the enemy asset. The man is not holding Potter the right way.

The child reaches out towards the Soldier.

"M-my Sol-der... keep me s-safe?" The words are choked out in little more than a whisper.

It is not an order. The boy cannot give orders, he is a target, not a superior. Why does the Soldier want to comply?

 _Get the boy,_ the unofficial voice once again gives orders in the Soldier's head.

"Shut it, you." The agent holding the boy gives the child a rough shake. Some of the tears in the boy's eyes start to leak out.

"There are abrasions on his back." The Soldier's hands twitch forward as if to take Potter from the tall man, but he stops himself and keeps them at his sides, where they clench into fists. Why are they clenched? He has been ordered to stand down.

The other people, even the man still outside the window, all aim their guns at the Soldier's head and shout at it. This is also nothing new, and a good idea. This way, they can put the Soldier down, or incapacitate it, if it malfunctions and attacks.

The Asset's prosthetic arm whirs, plates shifting. The fist clenches tighter. It wants to swing out, grab Potter. This is mission non-compliant. It is disallowed.

"Marionetka." The bearded agent doesn't quite stammer, but it is close. Coward. "Marionetka. Stand down."

The boy is still reaching out towards the Asset, a pleading expression on his face. The Asset's arms twitch in the boy's direction.

"He's not yours." One of the men tells the Asset, actually speaking directly to it. "He's HYDRA's."

The boy belongs to HYDRA, just like the Asset. It is none of the Asset's concern if the boy is hurt.

The mission was to deliver the target, Harry James Potter. The Soldier did not complete it.

Failure and defects are inexcusable. There will be correction.

The body remembers previous corrections, but there are no overwhelming images in the mind to accompany the phantom sensations of burns, beatings, simulated drownings. The experiments testing the limits of the Soldier's healing, electroshock treatment, the Chair.

Especially the Chair.

Respiration and heartbeat increase 20%. The body trembles slightly.

The Asset tries to be still as ordered. It deserves correction for failing the mission.

"Hands behind your back." The blond man who is not from the visions barks, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. The Asset complies, feels the cold metal snap around his flesh wrist. He does not feel it on the prosthetic arm.

This position means the Soldier will not be able to hold Potter as he was made to do in the escorts' car. The tall man is still holding the boy incorrectly, still touching his injured back. Potter is crying silently, but seems to realize the Asset cannot hold him with cuffed hands.

The fists are still clenched. At least the agents are smart enough to administer the cuffs behind the back, rather than in front, where the Soldier could more quickly malfunction and grab them in a choke hold. The voice giving the new, unofficial orders, tells the Soldier to do just that.

The Soldier is physically capable of breaking through the restraints, but it doesn't. It stands with its hands cuffed behind its back.

"Just reset him. They gave us the words."

_RESET REQUIRED._

The bearded man glances down at a sheet of paper he produced from his pocket.

"Zhelaniye... Rzhavyy, Sem-nadtsat'..."

The Soldier knows the words. They increase respiration and heart rate by 13%.

"Rass-vet... Pech'..."

They make the mind think of a book. The man does not have the book, but he has the words, even if he stumbles a little over the pronunciations.

The mind slowly grows quieter, for the first time in over twelve hours. No more warring missions. There is only one set of orders. This is how it is meant to be.

The Soldier's fists unclench, and its muscles relax.

After the tenth word- "grusovoy vagon", грузовой вагон, _Freight-car_ \- the Soldier is completely still.

The head is quiet, soon to be filled with a mission. It stares at the handlers, awaiting orders.

"Soldier?"

"Ready to comply."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry... but maybe everything isn't totally hopless...? Or is it? (also, HYDRA would have to be morons to not have some kind of tracker in his arm... I don't think they did in the movies, though. Otherwise they would've grabbed him after CA:TWS)
> 
> I only used the internet for the translations, so there's a chance they're inaccurate. And switching between the phonetic spelling and the actual spelling was intentional.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know I mentioned thinking about it a few chapters ago, and I've decided to officially bump back the Harry Potter timeline, meaning Harry was not born in 1980, and this is sometime in the 2000s, enough that GPS systems exist. At least, those ones you used to buy for cars that are only GPS's... not sure if this is late enough in the 2000s or 2010s for smartphones to be commonplace yet. As you can see, I'm still not 100% sure of the year this takes place.

Albus Dumbledore sees that the house that was once Number Four, Privet Drive is truly blown up, much like the Potter's house had been in Godric's Hollow less than three years before, on that Halloween night when Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter.

All that is left of Number Four is charred rubble. The Blood Wards are essentially useless now that Harry's family is dead, and Dumbledore is trying to change them into some sort of protection for Harry, to keep him safe until they get him back.

The sky is cloudy and there's a storm on the horizon, which fits the mood rather well.

Albus knows they must get the boy back. It's been at least fifteen hours since he got the frantic fire call from Arabella Figg about the Dursley residence exploding. It's been about as long since Severus dueled the man who still most likely has Harry.

Harry is missing, and most likely in grave danger. Not only from potential Death Eaters, but from the assassin with the metal arm who presumably still has Harry in his clutches.

"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't sent him here." Beside Dumbledore, Minerva is fuming, with the rather fitting ferocity of a mother lion protecting her cubs, about how she knew that Harry should have never been left with the Dursley family, and how they were the worst sort of Muggles imaginable. "Merlin knows what that man is doing to him. If he so much as lays a hand on Harry, I'll-"

Albus tunes her out and focuses on the wards.

Changing the wards is not particularly tricky for Dumbledore, but there's no guarantee that the new protection wards will be able to help Harry wherever he is. The problem lies in the fact that they would be much more effective if Harry were here and Dumbledore could cast them on him directly.

He should have thought to cast something like this when he left Harry on the Dursleys' doorstep, but it's not as if he was in danger with his relatives.

Hopefully the new wards will protect Harry until they find him again. Albus really hopes the assassin isn't planning on killing Harry. The boy is necessary for defeating Voldemort. Despite what most of the wizarding world chooses to believe, Voldemort will most likely return.

Severus is stalking towards them, holding some sort of muggle device. He had been sent out to the site of the car where he had fought the assassin- thankfully, the car evidently hasn't been moved by the muggle authorities yet.

"What is it?" Minerva asks, looking at the device. It is a gray box with a glass screen that lights up, showing a map.

"A... GPS." Albus answers, still unfamiliar with the term. Some of the things muggles invent are truly amazing.

In their second questioning of the kidnappers, they had managed to gain a bit of useful information. The two muggles- who are once again petrified- revealed that this 'GPS' device will tell them the location of the soldier who took Harry, by tracking something in the soldier's metal arm. It is one of those... electric devices, though, and muggle technology often doesn't work well with magic.

Severus looks at it as the screen flickers slightly, and the Potions Master reads out an address that almost certainly isn't connected to the Floo Network. Furthermore, they can't apparate there without knowing what the place looks like.

Dumbledore decides to try to pull some strings and get someone at the ministry to connect the building -which is apparently some sort of ski lodge, whatever that is- to the Floo Network briefly.

* * *

The Soldier stands quietly, awaiting orders from its handlers. The head is quiet, and the agents have turned off the screen, so the only noise is the rain that has started to fall on the roof, and the boy's quiet sobs.

The boy is in the bearded agent's arms, but the agent's grip is rough. The boy had been a target, a package to deliver, but he is now in the hands of the handlers. That mission is complete. It should not have taken so long to complete the mission, but the Soldier had defected.

It does not know if it is still defective, but it will be punished regardless. For defecting enough that HYDRA had to send agents to collect the Soldier and the boy, instead of just returning to the base and delivering the boy like it was supposed to.

The agents have not yet given the Asset a new mission. Perhaps there will not be a new mission until it is returned to the base, and wiped in the Chair.

The boy, the previous mission, Potter, is staring at the Asset. "Mr. A'set, sir?" The Asset doesn't respond.

"...M-mar-onet-tka?" Potter tries the word very hesitantly, saying it as if it is one of the Asset's codenames rather than a code word used to control it. He speaks so quietly, the Soldier doesn't think the agent holding the boy hears the word. The Soldier has enhanced hearing, and even its ears barely pick up the word.

_марионетка_

The boy has given the code word that means, essentially, _I am a superior, obey me. I control you._

The Soldier's eyes snap to the child. Potter had been a target, merely a package to deliver for the mission. The Asset has never had a target turn into a superior, at least not that it can remember. Yet there have been people the Asset first thought were enemies who turned into superiors, such as the men and woman in the room.

Regardless, the reset means past missions are unimportant. All that matters is the new mission, which still has not been assigned.

But the boy had simply heard the agents saying the code word earlier. Potter was certainly not authorized to use the word or gain control over the Asset. Is the child really a superior now?

As the Asset thinks this, something seems to ripple through its mind, a foreign entity trying to reset him again. It stirs something else, something inside the mind, that immediately starts trying to push out.

The boy has given the codeword before the agents in the room. It is not the Asset's place to question its handlers. The young handler had given the word, that is all that matters. The agents still have not given the code word, following the reset.

"A-A'set..." The boy stammers. The Asset's eyes stay on the handler. It must always give its superiors its full attention when they address it.

"Help..." The boy is loud enough this time that the agent holding him hears the word. It is clear that he doesn't really have much hope about getting any assistance. He stares pleadingly at the Soldier's face, only his green eyes briefly flick down to where the Soldier's arms are cuffed behind its back.

"Put a sock in it, you." The bearded agent holding the Soldier's young handler growls. "He won't help you, he obeys us."

Incorrect.

"Puh-ease..." The mini-handler is much quieter. It is an odd thing to add, handlers never say _please._ Until now.

_HELP_

It is the first order the Soldier has gotten since being reset. The mini-handler has given the Soldier a mission.

_OBEY._

_Get the boy,_ The other voice adds. _Keep him safe._

The agent puts a hand over the mini-handler's mouth. Eyes wide with fear, the mini-handler kicks instinctively and catches the agent in the groin with a tiny, waterproof red boot. The agent grunts, grimacing and bending forward slightly, yet not letting go of the boy.

Despite landing a kick, the mini-handler definitely does not have this agent on the ropes. Will he say he did, anyways? That seems familiar, somehow, as if someone who'd gotten beat up said that.

Once he regains his bearings, the agent wraps a hand around the mini-handler's throat. The child squirms more, landing a kick in the man's stomach.

_STOP._

The Soldier's fists clench.

_Save the handler._

The agent is not allowed to hurt the Soldier's handler. Doing so makes him an enemy, a threat to be neutralized. The man is no longer a superior, as he had been before the reset.

The Asset usually has missions involving assassinations, yet somehow the idea of protecting a scrawny boy and beating up people who try hurting the boy seems almost instinctual, as if he's done it a million times before, but for someone else. His mind conjures an image of the blonde guy.

In one fluid movement, the Asset rips the chain on the cuffs, although the metal rings are still around its wrists, and brings its arms forward, lunging for the agent holding the Asset's mini-handler.

The agents had gotten too relaxed, let their guard down in the Soldier's presence. Their mistake. The agents fumble slightly with their weapons, in shock, giving the Soldier even more of an advantage.

It takes the agents 1.3 seconds to properly aim their weapons at the Asset. By that time, the Asset has its mini-handler in its flesh arm, against its hip.

"What the f-" is all the bearded agent manages to get out before the metal hand is wrapped around his throat and the words are replaced with panicked, strangled sounds.

"Soldier, stand down!" The blonde male agent shouts. The agents all look very scared, and some of the guns are shaking slightly with their bodies. " _Marionetka! Marionetka!_ Soldier, comply!"

Code word: rejected. They are now enemies of the Soldier's handler. They have no power over the Soldier.

The Asset's hand tightens and crushes the bearded agent's windpipe. That threat to the Asset's handler has been neutralized.

The three remaining agents in the room are standing between .8 and 1.7 meters away.

The fourth living agent, still standing outside the window 2 meters away, abruptly fires his gun, shattering the glass pane. The sound of guns and glass breaking makes the mini-handler cry.

The Soldier shields its mini-handler from the glass shards with its body, and another agent takes the opportunity to fire their gun at them. The Soldier successfully covers its handler, but the bullet buries itself in the Soldier's flesh arm.

Adrenaline dulls the Asset's pain. Its own injuries are negligible, and it seems to have prevented the injury of its handler, though there is no time to thoroughly examine the mini-handler now.

The Asset has three pistols and six knives to go against four armed agents, but right now its hands are busy holding its mini-handler and the dead bearded agent. It is a good thing they had not gotten around to frisking him.

The Asset shoves the boy under the bed. The bed does not provide great cover, but it is better than nothing. While it is doing this, two of the other agents fire off shots.

He uses the dead body of the bearded agent as a shield, and red soon splatters on the ground. One of the bullets goes all the way through the man but is stopped by the Soldier's tactical vest.

It is good he hadn't taken off the vest. He already has one bullet wound, another- especially in the chest- would greatly hinder his performance or even kill him.

That would be unacceptable. It would put his young handler in danger, the Soldier notes as he aims his gun in one fluid motion.

Lightning flashes outside, as the storm predicted by the news finally arrives.

The female agent is pulling out a communication device, while the agent outside climbs through the shattered window.

The Asset hurls the lifeless body at two of the agents to provide a distraction while he draws his own gun. The body not only knocks them down, it knocks the communication device out of the female agent's hands before she can call for help. The device is soon crushed under the Asset's boot.

The third and fourth agents try to squeeze off shots that the Asset blocks with its metal arm, though the second bullet almost gets past the Asset's defenses.

The Soldier is an incredibly skilled marksman and can shoot quicker than the agents. Four shots from his own gun, and they all fall with bullets in their foreheads. He did not even need to get any of his knives dirty, although the room is now far from clean.

The Asset crouches down by the edge of the bed. The mini-handler is pressed up against the wall under the bed, curled tightly in the fetal position. He looks even smaller, like when he'd been in the cupboard under the stairs. The handler's body is shaking with muffled sobs, one hand trying to stifle them.

At every clap of thunder, Potter flinches. Perhaps he thinks they are gunshots.

The Soldier's presence is ignored. This is not uncommon- there's no need to acknowledge a weapon unless it is needed, and the threats have been neutralized.

Handlers do not cry, so this is a first, unless he's not remembering some other handler crying. The Asset remembers the boy crying back when he was the target, and how he had wet his pants during the other fight. At least that seems to have been avoided this time.

The Asset waits for further orders, or a prompt for a status report. Nothing is forthcoming from the handler at the moment.

He should take care of the bullet in his arm. After all, he needs to be in peak condition for optimum performance to ensure further mission success.

It takes longer for the Asset to find a medical kit here at the ski lodge than it had at the Dursley residence, but after 4.5 minutes, he eventually finds one behind a counter in the actual kitchen, which is separated from the large, open, combined sitting and dining areas. He keeps an ear out for any sound of more approaching agents.

The Asset returns to the bedroom in case his handler has a need for him, and sits on the floor.

At least the bullet is not too difficult to reach with tweezers. The Asset does not have much experience with field medicine, but he manages to dislodge the bullet with tweezers, scowling even more fiercely than usual at the pain. He has to stop to catch his breath once, now that his adrenaline has ebbed. It is more difficult than removing the porcelain shards from the handler's hands had been last night, when he'd been the target.

Before the Asset fully pulls the bullet out, his handler speaks from under the bed. The Asset stills, giving his handler's words his full attention, despite him being hidden from sight under the bed.

"You beated da bad guys up?" The mini-handler asks cautiously.

 _Mission Report._ Odd that the new handler doesn't explicitly order it.

"The threats have been eliminated." The Asset reports. "They will not harm you."

"They... not hurt me?" The boy asks as if not being hurt is a foreign concept.

"They will not harm you." The Soldier repeats in the exact same monotone, but he is making a promise. Nobody will harm his handler. Not under his watch, certainly.

"Oh." The handler is silent for a bit. "You helped me...?" He sounds awed, as if he didn't expect the Soldier to follow orders. Then again, the Soldier had been unintentionally defecting before the reset.

"Affirmative."

"I think... you really are my Batman, Mr. A'set, sir."

Is _Batman_ supposed to be a new codename? But he had still been called _Asset_ by his handlerso the usual codename still applies.

Why is the handler calling him _Mr._ and _sir?_ If anything, it should be the Soldier respectfully addressing his handler with the honorifics, certainly not the other way around. But the Soldier never corrects his handlers, so he doesn't comment on the odd form of addressing a weapon.

"Affirmative." The Asset- possible new codename: Batman- answers.

The handler does something odd, when he pokes his head out from under the bed and smiles at the Soldier, although his small nose is slightly scrunched from the smell of blood. It had been odd enough before, but it is stranger now that the Soldier is under his control. Smiles are not something handlers typically wear when looking at him.

The mini-handler has not given any orders since _help,_ which has been carried out successfully. The small boy crawls out from under the bed and frowns.

"Blood." Potter points his finger, first at the blood splattered from the agents' foreheads, but then at the Soldier's blood. "Mr. A'set. Blood. You hurt?"

"Functioning within operable parameters." The Asset replies, still crouched on the floor. His reflexes in his right, flesh arm may be slowed as much as 70%, but he is not completely incapacitated. His prosthesis is not damaged, and it is more powerful than his flesh arm.

The Soldier stills when the boy wraps his arms around his neck. He doesn't move to shake his handler off- he is never allowed to. But this isn't checking his functionality. It's almost like... a hug?

"Hurt." The handler murmurs sadly, as if the Soldier's pain actually matters. The wound does hurt, but all that matters is whether he is functional. "Like wid'da Dursleys."

"Pain manageable."

The boy's arms tighten slightly around the Soldier's neck when lightning flashes and thunder booms 2.1 seconds after the lightning, but the grip is not tight enough to interfere with respiratory functions. Potter lets out a tiny whimper and buries a tiny, still-bandaged hand in the Asset's hair. The Asset doesn't move.

It is strange, having the handler cling to him like this, but slowly, the small body relaxes, a tiny head with messy black hair falling against the Soldier's chest, tiny hands pulling slightly at his hair. The hair-pulling and tightening around the neck do not feel like punishments.

"You were like a robot. Dudley watched 'em on the telly when I was cleaning, but then Aunt Tuna hit me for it. Freaks don't get to watch telly." The boy whispers guiltily, eyes lowered. "But you're my Batman A'set now... I seed him too."

"The... Batman Asset is not a robot." The Asset easily adapts to the new codename and doesn't correct the boy's grammatical mistakes. Apparently, his new handler had had seen his cousin watching _Batman,_ whatever that is, as well. But _Batman_ is a new codename, and the cousin hadn't been watching the Soldier.

"The blood!" The mini-handler gasps again after 17 seconds of neither of them speaking, looking at the blood on the floor as if he'd temporarily forgotten, despite the smell. " I-I'll clean it. Now." He promises hastily, almost panicked.

If anything, shouldn't the handler order the Asset... Batman to clean it up? He would obey unquestioningly, of course, and he knows how to clean messy evidence such as blood, or even guts and organs. Usually his kills are more clean than these had been.

He cannot tell his handler what to do, so he remains silent. The boy shuffles off, head ducked down.

The Asset goes back to cleaning the wound on his arm and bandaging it. Once that's done, he pulls the second bullet out of his tac vest. It plinks as it falls and rolls across the floor.

3.7 minutes later, Potter returns with a bucket, a rag and ammonia, and starts to blot at the blood stains in the carpet. He obviously has practice from living with the Dursley's. Had he been made to clean his own blood after getting injured?

He should not be handling ammonia at such a young age.

"That is not necessary." The Soldier murmurs. It's speaking out of turn, but the boy isn't very forthcoming with anything. Handlers are always explicit with orders, except this one.

"But I gotta clean it, sir."

The Asset says nothing as he turns to his other arm.

The prosthesis, at least, had not been damaged by any bullets. But it had been what had lead to the whole incident, apparently. They had tracked him with a device in his arm that they had not told him about. If it stays in, they will find him again, and soon.

There might already be backup agents on the way, if they worry that they're not getting a response from the dead agents.

He glances at the handler, wondering if the boy will give permission to reveal the tracker.

The small handler seems rather uneasy around the corpses, only cleaning the blood at least 1 m away from them, and staring at their bleeding foreheads, rubbing his own. It had obviously bled as well, whenever he got that odd lightning bolt scar. The Soldier does not know how his handler got the scar, or when, or if his handler remembers it. He is so young, after all, that at least a fourth of his life is totally forgotten to him.

Still, there is no doubt that the boy remembers more of his short life of barely more than four years than the Asset remembers of his significantly longer existence.

While Potter seems to have experience with being around and cleaning blood, he clearly does not have experiences with corpses or brain matter, and seems quite scared of both of them.

"Are they gonna wake up?" Potter asks fearfully, looking at the dead bodies as if they will suddenly be resurrected to slap him for not cleaning quickly enough.

"They are dead. But more will come." The Asset says.

"They're scawry. No more puh'ease." Potter whispers, squeezing his eyes shut.

 _Keep him away from HYDRA._ The defective voice is now back, with a new mission. _Keep the handler safe._

This makes the Batman pause. This handler clearly does not want to be aligned with HYDRA, but he was supposed to be HYDRA's property. Delivering him had been the previous mission, but that is irrelevant after the reset.

If the handler wants to stay away from HYDRA, the Soldier will ensure he stays away.

Yet, even though his currently handler is not part of HYDRA, the Soldier still is. HYDRA would not let their asset go, they will be searching for him and the boy.

The mission is to avoid HYDRA. They cannot stay here, then. HYDRA will look for them here.

_RELOCATE._

The Soldier nods, and gathers the agents' weapons for his own use later. The only positive part of them showing up is that he now has more guns. It hurts to pick them up with his flesh arm, though, so he straps them onto the various clips on his tactical vest with his prosthesis.

The Asset moves to the dining/sitting area. He grabs the bags of food, which were already mostly packed. He pauses at bag of animal crackers, which is still on the table instead of packed with the other food.

His handler will need food. The boy is looking at the crumbs in the wardrobe as if he is wondering if he can get away with eating them.

The Asset pulls out a couple crackers, before stuffing the bag of them in his backpack.

He glances at the weaponized stick in the side pocket of the backpack, then pulls it out and tosses it aside. He cannot use it anyways, and for all he knows, that might be able to track them as well. Besides, since he will be avoiding HYDRA, there is no need to deliver it to them.

Potter grins widely at the Asset when he hands him a few animal crackers, as . "F'ank you siwr." The boy speaks around the bear cracker he already stuffed in his mouth as he wordlessly holds one up to the Asset. The Asset takes the giraffe-shaped cracker and eats it.

The boy is already dressed in his waterproof boots and coats. The Soldier does not have similar waterproof clothes, and pulling on the stolen hooded sweatshirt could further injure his flesh arm, so he leaves the sweatshirt off. Unfortunately, his metal arm is still visible, and it is very distinguishable.

As he heads towards the door, the mini-handler glances at the Soldier, almost as if he is supposed to be giving orders instead of the boy. The Soldier still has the voice in his head giving orders, telling him to relocate.

The Soldier doesn't know _where_ he's going when he steps outside- it's only drizzling now, the storm only lasted 4.6 minutes- but he hadn't known where he was going when he ended up at the ski lodge, either.

He will not take the van that the agents arrived in. They will be looking for it. He could steal the gas for the car he'd stolen last night, but the television had proven that the theft of that car was reported so he will not be inconspicuous.

Walking it is.

Fifteen minutes into their walk, the boy is stumbling tiredly, but hasn't uttered a single word. Still, the mini-handler's hands let go of the animal crackers, but the Soldier catches them before they hit the ground.

 _Carry him._ The voice says when the boy nods off then and there.

_WAIT FOR PERMISSION._

"Permission to pick you up." The Soldier says. The boy gives a noncommittal grunt, head drooping, as he almost falls to the ground. Potter had not gotten much sleep last night.

The Soldier takes the boy practically falling as permission, since they need to move. He scoops his sleeping handler into his metal arm, his right hand clutching the animal crackers for the handler to eat later, and continues walking.

* * *

It takes a little over half an hour to Floo from Arabella Figg's house to the to the Ministry of Magic, arrange for the location to temporarily be connected to the Floo Network (without revealing the real reason), and then Floo to the location that the GPS had given them.

The dot showing where the man is had mysteriously disappeared while they were at the ministry. Perhaps there was too much magic in the air for the muggle device, yet it still shows the map, just not the man's location. Right before they floo'd here, it had still been absent.

Severus looks around as he steps out of the fireplace at their location, borrowed wand clasped in his hand. He's ready to fight the man who stole Potter.

Severus will not lose to the muggle this time. If he hadn't underestimated the man, he should have won the first time. After all, the Potions Master is a very competent wizard and skilled duelist. It seems this muggle is more powerful than a human should be, but Severus knows to expect that now.

Dumbledore and McGonagall step out of the fireplace after him.

They arrive in a large, combined sitting and dining area, that seems to be a public place, but it is deserted now, or at least this area is. There is the smell of ammonia in the air.

Dumbledore casts a human-presence-revealing spell, and it reveals that they are the only ones in the building. Great, so the man left already. Severus casts a glance down at the GPS, but still the dot is gone, meaning they have no way to track him.

Severus approaches the side room that the smell is coming from, and it turns out to be one of several bedrooms, presumably for guests.

There are four dead men and a dead woman, all bleeding from their foreheads. At least Potter's body is not among them, but there is no guarantee he is fine. Perhaps his lifeless body is elsewhere. Severus has no idea what the kidnappers had planned for the boy, and he's not sure the wards Dumbledore changed are really doing anything to help the brat.

The only good news is that Severus finds his wand on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, everything's fine :)
> 
> I know the characters haven't figured it out, but the new wards helped switch Bucky to protecting Harry. It was inspired by Azteka's (a guest's) review on Fanfiction.
> 
> I recently joined tumblr. You can find me at  
> https://yodelingprospector.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was looking up ways to stop GPS signals, and one of them was using a metal shield, and I had the tracker in Bucky's arm... then, after freaking out thinking I screwed up, I realized that HYDRA made a super-advanced prosthetic arm in the forties, so they can probably make a tracker that can be in said metal arm and still work.

The Asset carries his sleeping mini-handler, the bags of food and his backpack, with only his prosthetic arm. He could still use his flesh arm, and ignore the pain- he's good at that, and he's worked through pain worse than his current gunshot wound- but using the injured arm will slow down its healing, and at the moment, there is no need to use it.

This vast, open countryside is both advantageous and disadvantageous. There are currently no people around to spot him here, but it is a lot harder to avoid detection. There would be more places to conceal oneself in a city, but there would be more people who could potentially be HYDRA agents looking for him.

He keeps walking away from the road, and uses the hills to conceal him as much as possible. Only two cars have driven by in the past 25 minutes. Both times, he wondered if they were HYDRA, but the cars drove by without slowing down and so far, nobody has come after him. Still, the Asset will not let his guard down.

The Asset can move at least 1.5 times faster than the non-enhanced human, but he walks instead of jogs, since the boy had thrown up last time the Soldier had jogged while carrying the child, and would likely regurgitate again.

He would be able to cover even more ground if he had a car, but he had to leave both the car he stole and the agents' car at the lodge. The authorities are looking for the one he stole- which was almost out of gas anyways- and the agents' car could have one, or several, tracking devices in it.

They are looking for him, and have a way to track him down. The agents let that slip.

_Remove the tracker._

The Soldier does not yet have permission from his handler to do so. He increases his pace slightly. HYDRA is surely looking for him, and most likely already sent more agents now that the ones the Soldier left in the lodge are unresponsive.

The mini-handler is wriggling around in the Soldier's grip 56 minutes later. "Puh-ease, no..." The child cries even as his face is buried against the Soldier's neck. "Hurts."

The Asset looks down at his prosthetic hand to make sure he is not gripping his new handler too tightly. His prosthesis is strong enough that it could crush the boy's bones.

He realizes that his handler is still asleep, meaning the words are most likely not directed at him. Still, he loosens his grip so that he's only exerting enough pressure to keep the boy from falling, and he's careful to avoid touching any of the boy's injuries.

"No more... p'ease stop, Uncle Vernon..." Potter begs in his sleep, confirming the theory that the boy is not actually addressing the Soldier. The Soldier scowls as he remembers watching the boy being beaten and starved by his relatives.

Anyone who tries beating his handler now will find the Soldier's fist in their face. For some reason, his mind conjures images of various alleyways, similar to the vision from before of that unidentified skinny blond person bruised in an alleyway.

"...'m s-sorry." The boy squirms in his sleep, and some sort of unseen force explodes outward from Potter, trying to force him away from Potter.

Something in the Soldier's prosthetic arm gives a sputtering beep, and he tightens his hold to keep his handler from tumbling out of his arms to the ground.

_MAINTENANCE REQUIRED._

The mini-handler wakes with a cry of pain when the metal hand squeezes his fragile body too tightly. He trembles in the Soldier's arms with ragged breaths, letting out little whimpers of pain. The boy immediately presses his knuckles to his mouth to stifle his sobs, looking around fearfully.

The Soldier is never permitted to silence its handlers, although its handlers often enforce the Soldier's silence by making it wear a mask on the lower half of its face, like a dog with a muzzle.

He puts the boy down and hoicks up the boy's jacket and shirt to examine his torso. There are still marks from the beating Vernon Dursley gave him the previous night, although their healing has progressed further than the Asset would have expected.

But there are fresh bruises, the exact size and shape as the Asset's prosthetic fingers on the boy's side. The injury could have been much worse than it is, it easily could have been fatal.

It is still mission-noncompliant.

 _PROTECT THE HANDLER._ The old voice reminds the Asset of the mission, even though it is obvious he failed.

Hurting handlers warrants corrective punishment, even if he had meant to keep the boy from falling, or if the force had somehow affected the arm.

Previous incidents of harming handlers have resulted in: beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, electrocution, simulated drowning, or the Chair.

The Asset scowls at its flesh fingers, which tremble at the thought of the Chair. It reaches into one of the bags of food to grab the medical kit from the ski lodge. It then drops the bags of food at its handler's feet, shrugs the backpack off its prosthetic shoulder. Pulling the shirt and jacket off the boy, it places the clothes on top of the backpack so they will not get dirty.

The Asset offers the two animal crackers in its pocket to its handler. The handler had been carrying them before falling asleep. The handler grabs the crackers, smiling slightly, but stands still when the Soldier starts to doctor the wounds it inadvertently inflicted.

"Mr. A'set, sir?" The handler bites his small lip worriedly as the Asset wraps more bandages around the boy's already heavily-bandaged torso. Ice would help decrease the swelling, but there is no ice available. "Are you gonna wallop me?"

"Negative."

"W-really?"

"Affirmative. I am your Batman." The use of the newly assigned codename makes the handler smile, but it falls quickly.

"B-but you squeezed me an' it hurt." The handler is extremely confused, lower lip trembling.

"It will not happen again." The Asset lowers its head. "Awaiting punishment."

The handler whimpers at the last word. The Asset cannot help wondering what the punishment will be.

The new handler does not have access to the Chair. All the boy currently owns are the clothes he is wearing, plus everything the Soldier is carrying, since the Soldier cannot claim ownership of anything, not even the prosthetic arm attached to it.

Even the Soldier is owned by its handler.

The Asset's mini-handler is not strong enough to deliver any sort of physical punishment, nor does he have any restraints. He could take the deprivation angle when it comes to punishment.

Perhaps the mini-handler will take one of the weapons from the Soldier's sheaths or holsters. One of the knives could provide sufficient correction, or a gunshot wound to some non-fatal area. The Asset keeps his hands away from the weapons, leaving them open for the handler to grab, even as some part wonders if a boy as young as Potter would know how to use the weapons.

Of course, if the handler chooses to, he could simply kill the Asset. Or even order the Asset to shoot or stab itself, to end its own life for hurting him.

The Asset waits for correction. It tries to still the tremor in its own body, but the body refuses, so only the prosthesis stays completely unmoving.

1.6 minutes pass.

There is a dark shape in the distance, approaching them. Large, but not tall enough to be a person. The deep barking indicates it is a dog.

The Asset draws a gun, aiming it but not shooting yet. His handler has not given the order to kill, but seems nervous when he hears the barks, saying something about an Aunt Marge and mean dogs.

The Soldier positions himself between the incoming threat and his handler.

The shape turns out to be a huge black dog. The lack of a collar, as well as its disheveled, skinny state, indicate that it is a stray. It stops in front of the Soldier, sniffing hopefully at the bags of food.

The dog is not one of HYDRA's dogs- it's a different breed, although the Soldier isn't sure exactly which. He only ever saw HYDRA's dogs when they were snarling through their muzzles, ready to attack an enemy when given the command. Which isn't too different from the Soldier, really. He sometimes wears a muzzle as well.

"No." The Soldier tells it. At least the dog seems to know that command, and leaves the food alone, albeit with a whine. It then eats the animal cracker loosely shaped like a dog in the handler's hand.

The boy does not protest the dog eating his food aside from pouting slightly, as if he believes the dog has right to claim it over him.

He thinks the boy will shy away from the dog, which is bigger than he is but Potter seems to realize it is doing nothing harmful by sniffing him. The mini-handler cautiously pats the dog's black fur with a bandaged hand, a small smile on his face that grows as the dog licks him.

The dog's tongue makes the boy squirm and squeal, and the Soldier is about to pull it away from his handler when he realizes the boy is laughing, even though his glasses are now smeared with dog saliva.

"Are you a boy dog or girl dog?" Potter asks the dog as if it will actually answer.

"It is male." The Soldier answers since dogs cannot talk. He wonders if his handler is even old enough to think to determine the animal's sex by looking at its genitalia. "Male means a boy or a man." He clarifies at the boy's blank look.

The Soldier stands, silently watching his handler pet the dog. The waterproof coat is effective against dog saliva as well as the boy's own messes. The voice in his head says they need to keep moving to avoid HYDRA, but his handler shows no signs of deciding to continue walking.

Right now, they are sitting ducks for HYDRA, and the mission is to avoid HYDRA.

_MOVE. RELOCATE._

"Sir," The Soldier ventures. Handlers usually insist on being addressed that way, especially when the Asset speaks to them without prompting. He never thought he'd be calling a child barely over four years old _sir,_ it seems strange, but it is strange to have a handler so young.

The boy doesn't even look up, not that that is uncommon. What is uncommon is that he has not administered correction or asked for a status report.

"Permission to disable the tracker in my arm." The Soldier says, wondering if the handler will decide he is speaking out of turn and add to his undelivered correction.

"You have a tractor in your arm?" The child laughs a bit.

"There is not a tractor in my arm. HYDRA put a tracking device in my arm that reveals our location to them. That is how the agents found us in the lodge." The Asset tells his handler.

"The scary men?" Potter shudders.

"Affirmative." The Asset answers, even though he would not have called them _scary._ "They will track us down again, unless it is disabled or removed."

"No scary men." Potter shakes his head fearfully.

"Is that permission to remove the tracker?" The Asset thinks it is, but it is best to make sure.

"...Yes?" Potter answers as if he's hoping his answer will please the Asset, as if the Asset's opinion matters when it should not even have opinions.

Even though the boy gave a very unsure affirmative, it is still an affirmative.

Unfortunately, he does not possess tools beyond the lock-picking kit, which is not suitable for tinkering with his prosthesis.

 _Find tools,_ becomes a new mission sub-objective.

The Asset picks up the bags, though he will not eat until given permission from his handler. He still does not know if the handler will withhold food as punishment.

After 5.3 minutes of walking- at the boy's slow pace- the Asset spies a cottage 102.5 meters away. He is approaching the back of it, which means there must be another road ahead. A shed is 10 m away from the cottage. It might contain tools.

The shed's door faces away from the house, so the Asset can conceal himself behind the shed as he breaks the almost useless padlock on the shed door. Even an ordinary human could break into this shed without much effort.

The shed contains various gardening tools, a lawnmower, three bicycles- one sized for an adult, and two smaller bicycles, a red one, and a bright blue one with dirty white wheels. They are unimportant.

There is a workbench, with a messy assortment of tools scattered on it.

The Asset strides over to the workbench, frowning at the complete disorder of equipment. Before he can begin repairs, he first needs to arrange the tools in some semblance of order on the pegboard mounted on the wall.

The mini-handler sits out of the way in the corner of the shed with the dog, which so far has remained silent. If it barks and alerts the cottage's residents to their presence in the shed, the Asset will silence it.

He tests the functionality of his prosthesis. There is a problematic clunking sound and resistance when the Asset twists the arm at the wrist, but other than that, movement is not impaired. He reports this information to the handler.

The Asset grabs a flat screwdriver with his flesh arm, gritting his teeth through the flash of pain from the gunshot wound, and starts to pry the metal plates off his prosthesis and expose the arm's innards.

He does not know where the tracker is in his prosthesis. Is it in the metal hand, the shoulder, the forearm? It is not under the first plate he tries, so he replaces it- which is tricky with just his injured flesh arm- and tries another.

Potter watches in awe, and asks a few questions that he seems to think he will be punished for asking, but the Asset has to answer his superiors. Again, the Asset tells the boy he is not a robot, one of the first things the child asked him.

20 minutes pass, consisting of the Asset pulling more metal plates off to find the damn tracker.

The handler starts talking quietly to the dog, saying more to the animal in the 20 minutes than he had during the five hours the Soldier had seen him at the Dursley's. He talks quietly enough that someone without enhanced hearing would not be able to make out all the words.

"Mr A'set's my Batman, 'cos he pr'tects me from da bad guys an' my Aunt and Uncle! He only punished me once, when I was sleeping, an' he helps me get better. He says he's a sol-der too. He's gotta dark costume like Batman, but a star, like a superhero."

The red star on the metal shoulder marks the Batman as HYDRA property. Hearing it referred to as a superhero mark is odd, but a star would not be a bad symbol for a superhero if it was emblazoned on the hero's chest.

He has a brief flash of a silver star on a blue costumed chest, but the rest of the mental image is blurred.

With his other hand, the boy fingers the lightning bolt scar on his own forehead, as if comparing them.

Is the boy's scar a mark showing that he belonged to the Dursley family, that they were his handlers before the Soldier assassinated them?

After another 6.8 minutes, he finds a small circular device, that is not connected to any of the arm's wiring, as if it had been added as an afterthought. Even though he did not know it was in his arm, he recognizes it is a tracker.

He pulls it out with a sense of mission progress. The little power light is off, but crushes it under his boot anyways.

The Soldier does not know how much he can do to fix the wrist clunking when it rotates.

"You hungwy, doggy? Skinny." The mini-handler says, despite being more malnourished than the creature. The Soldier turns to give his handler his full attention, arm still uncovered.

"You are more malnourished. You should eat." The boy's eyes light up and drift towards the animal crackers sitting at the top of one of the larger bags, and the Asset hands it to him. The boy opens it and munches on one, and the dog tries to grab the box in its teeth.

The Asset lifts the boy up and places him on the edge of the workbench. The dog is large enough that it could go on its hind legs and still easily grab the box, but it doesn't.

"They aren't dog biscuits." Potter mumbles, before pointing at a jar of peanut butter in the bag. "Ripper likes dat." It sounds like _Wipper_ when he says it. "Can we give it to our dog?"

So the dog is theirs now. It had already been following them, after all. They are all strays, except the Asset, since he has Potter as his handler. Potter has nobody, since the Asset assassinated his relatives.

The Soldier nods and unscrews the cap, handing the plastic jar to the boy. The dog immediately claims the whole thing by sticking its snout directly into the jar and licking at the peanut butter.

Once it takes its snout out of the jar, the dog licks at the crumbs of crackers on Potter's hand.

"You're nicer than Ripper. He bites." Potter says to the dog, actually pronouncing the _r_ correctly. He giggles again as it continues to lick him.

Hearing a noise outside, the Asset glances out the small shed window. The family is heading out the front door getting into one of the two cars parked in the driveway. An ordinary civilian family, it seems. A man and woman, both in their early thirties, and two children- a boy and a girl around the same size- twins, perhaps.

He watches the family get into the car and drive away. They had not even locked their door, although their boy had been the last one out. They are incompetent.

The Soldier starts reattaching the metal plates to his prosthesis. The handler starts squirming around with his legs wound tightly together, hand pressed to his groin.

It is obvious he has to urinate, but he makes no move to get down from the workbench.

"M-mr A's-set, sir, I haf'to..." Potter stammers.

"You do not have to ask to urinate." The Asset tells him, remembering earlier today when he told the boy not to urinate in his pants. Of course, now that he is a handler, the boy does not need to listen to anything the Asset says.

"Tank you." Potter bursts out. Before the Asset can even offer to take him into the empty cottage, the boy pulls down his pants, squats over a bucket, and urinates. The boy mumbles something about his cupboard.

The Soldier has urinated in a bucket before as well, and does so now, standing up and facing away from his handler. He dumps the bucket's contents outside the shed.

By 1836, over 24 hours after first observing Potter at the Dursley's, the Asset finishes reattaching the plates on his prosthesis. His flesh arm is exhausted, and his bandage is stained red. His stomach growls, he has used a lot of energy since he last ate.

The boy passes him an animal cracker shaped like a lion, apparently not planning on withholding food to punish him. He continues to pass the Asset food, like he had at the lodge.

This handler is very lenient when it comes to correction. He even gives the Soldier another plum.

Unlike Potter, the dog does not know how to properly relieve itself and demonstrates this by defecating on the shed floor.

The dog seems totally unconcerned while the boy clearly fears punishment, stammering out apologies intermixed with statements about "Aunt Tuna" and Ripper. The handler insists on cleaning it up, but there are few cleaning supplies in the shed.

The dog starts eating its own feces, which is disgusting but means Potter stops worrying about cleaning it. Is it normal for dogs to eat fecal matter?

Scrunching his nose, the Asset puts the most useful tools in the shed inside his backpack. After gathering up the bags, he checks that the coast is clear and then walks towards the driveway, where the family's second car is parked. Having two cars is excessive, but it is fortunate for the Asset. He quickly hot-wires this one, loads up the boy and the dog in the back (though the car lacks child-safety seats), and puts the car in drive.

"You never drive the Batmobile." The boy remarks. "Dudley had a toy one but he it bwoke when he pushed it down the stairs, an' Aunt Tuna didn't let me keep it."

"Destination?" The Asset asks, and when he gets no response, adds "Sir?"

 _DRIVE._ He's commanded in his head, but the handler does not respond, and so the car remains stationary.

 _Avoid HYDRA._ The newer voice adds, because the first voice seems unable to say it.

"Why'd you call me _sir?_ " The handler asks in confusion. "Adults don't call kids _sir..._ not bad worthless boys."

"You are the handler. How do you wish to be addressed?" The Soldier asks, frowning slightly. What handler doesn't want to be addressed with _sir_ or _ma'am_?

"...Harry?" The boy whispers as if he doesn't mean to say it aloud, and hunches his shoulders as if the Soldier will get mad at him.

Addressing a handler by their first name is extremely disrespectful- the Asset has never done so- but it is what the handler requested to be called. This handler is exceedingly incomprehensible.

"Affirmative, Harry." The Asset answers, and Harry smiles at the use of his first name.

"Aunt Tuna an' Uncle Vernon never called me dat. Just 'boy.' 'Freak.'" Harry mutters, and then starts to debate names for the dog. Harry still seems to think that _Asset_ is a real name, but he gave the Asset the new codename of _Batman_ anyways.

The Asset is glad that Harry does not consider giving him the codename _Blackie._ Or _Tickly-tongue,_ when the dog licks Harry again.

 _DRIVE._ The mission pounds again in the Asset's ear.

"Where do you want to go, Harry?" He asks.

"Away from the scawry guys."

That is not a destination, but it is the direction he'd been headed anyways. The Asset puts the car in drive.

Unfortunately, they drive the family driving back in their other car, and they recognize their car. The man does not chase him when he floors the gas and speeds away, perhaps because he does not want to involve his family in a car chase, but they are surely going to call the authorities sooner than he would have liked.

The police will most likely barricade the road before the Soldier can get anywhere. He cannot turn off anywhere now, so he reluctantly parks the car, unloads the boy and the dog, and sets out on foot once again.

Maybe, in the future, he should just try to sneak rides in the backs of delivery trucks or cargo trains and avoid all the hassle of stolen vehicle reports.


	9. Chapter 9

"Why'd we leave the car?" The mini-handler asks, confused, when waking up 19 minutes after they left it in the road and started walking. As usual, he tenses after asking the question.

"The family has most likely reported that it was stolen." Which means the police have most likely been notified and have perhaps even barricaded the road by now.

 _POLICE DETECTION IS MISSION-NONCOMPLIANT._ The usual voice in his head says.

It is a rule for every mission- do not alert the authorities to his presence. It would have been almost impossible to continue driving and avoid them on an empty rural road.

 _They'd take him away._ The newer voice adds and points out, unnecessarily, that if taken into police custody, the Asset would be charged with eight first-degree murders, two instances of vehicular theft, kidnapping a child, and his burglary of the Tesco store.

And that is just in the past 25.2 hours.

"We stealed it?" Harry the Handler asks, horrified.

"Affirmative, Harry." The Asset is still not used to addressing his superior as just "Harry" and cannot fathom his new handler's request. But he must do as his handler wishes and refer to him as requested, as illogical as the wish seems. The name makes Harry the Handler smile, anyways. "We stole it."

"But stealing's bad!" Harry the Handler protests, seeming more bold when the Asset had not gotten annoyed at him for talking. "Dudley told Aunt Tuna I stealed his cookie. I didn't, really, but I still got in big twouble!" He shudders and sniffles.

"Is stealing disallowed for the mission?"

Despite his protests, Harry the Handler does not actually forbid the Soldier from stealing in the future. Which is good, because the Soldier has no money, so theft is the only way to obtain anything at the moment.

"Assassinating the family after they passed us on the road would have stopped them from reporting the theft." The Asset informs him. Then, they could have kept the car, without worrying about police.

"Asassassanat...?" Harry the Handler asks. "Is dat your other name? Like how Aunt Tuna calls Dudley 'Diddikins'?" The boy snickers slightly.

"Negative. _Assassinate_ means to kill." He is not sure Harry the Handler really understands what that means, but the boy does not reply.

The mini-handler had been scared of the agents' corpses in the lodge. It is odd that Harry the Handler would take control of a very highly skilled assassin and then not make use of that branch of the Asset's skills.

Harry the Handler switches topics and starts debating dog names aloud again. The Soldier offers no input. He should not have opinions, after all, and the dog's name does not affect him. At one point, Harry the Handler asks the Soldier for his opinion, but the Soldier just tells the boy that it is entirely his choice.

Eventually, Harry the Handler decides to call the black dog 'Nighty' rather than 'Blackie', adding that Batman is the Dark Knight. The Asset wonders if the Dark Knight will replace his Winter Soldier designation, but so far, his handler has not changed any previous codenames, merely assigned him a new one. Or two, possibly, if Dark Knight is to be a codename.

The boy's green eyes seem more lively when he talks about Batman to his Batman. The Asset/Batman suspects that Batman is somebody else, in addition to his new codename, but the boy has said that the Asset is Batman. It is confusing.

Nighty continues to follow them, most likely because Harry the Handler had fed the dog peanut butter in the shed.

After 33.4 minutes of walking, the Asset finds train tracks that he had not explicitly been searching for, despite thinking about taking trains or trucks instead of cars.

"Where is it?" Harry the Handler asks, looking around in confusion, clearly disappointed that there is not a train on the tracks. "Wanna take the twain."

"The location of the train is unknown. If we follow the tracks, we will most likely find a train eventually." That is, if these tracks are still in use. The Asset does not know if they are.

_FIND A TRAIN._

He walks along the tracks for another 1.3 hours, while Harry eventually dozes in his arms and Nighty pads along beside them, occasionally stopping to eat grass for some reason.

The Asset uses his lock-picking kit to unlock the handcuff ring from around his flesh wrist. He had removed the cuff from his prosthesis to check under the wrist plates in the shed, but hadn't bothered with the one around his flesh wrist at the time.

At 2018, the sound of a train can be heard. It grows louder and the distant form speeds towards them, Harry the Handler blearily wakes up, nuzzling the Asset's neck. When he notices the train approaching, his eyes go wide with excitement.

Harry the Handler bounces slightly in the Asset's arms, chanting excitedly. "Twain! Twain!"

"Are we taking a twain?" It is clear that Harry the Handler still wants to. "'cos you don't have the Batmobile?"

"Affirmative, Harry."

The child smiles and talks about the 'Thomas stories on da telly' that he could hear from his cupboard when Dudley was watching it and how he could hear the whole story, not just people talking.

The Asset has no idea what his handler is talking about while he walks along the train tracks, but he listens to every word and stores the information for later. Are Thomas, Annie and Clarabel potential future targets? From the sound of it, they'd more likely become allies or possibly other handlers since Harry the Handler speaks of them fondly.

Except, from the boy's words, it seems that Thomas is a train.

As the real train nears, the Asset sees it is a freight train instead of a passenger train, which is fortunate in that there will not be other people riding it.

"Hold tight, Harry." The Asset says quietly, trying not to make it sound like he is commanding his superior.

"Yessir." The boy nods and wraps his too-thin arms around the Asset's neck while his legs tighten around his waist.

The Soldier keeps Harry the Handler tucked tightly to his side and holds onto the scruff of Nighty's neck with his flesh hand.

Harry the Handler goes back to bouncing slightly in the Asset's arms, chanting "Twain!" The movement makes the boy more cumbersome, especially in the Soldier's wounded flesh arm, but the Soldier cannot tell his superior to stop. He grits his teeth. Nighty is squirming even more from the Soldier's fist.

Jumping onto a moving train would kill any ordinary human, but the Asset has jumped on and off moving vehicles before. The Asset would easily be able to do it alone, but it will be trickier since he is functioning at 65% right now. In the past 24 hours, he has slept only 2.4 hours and sustained a gunshot wound. It is made even more difficult by the fact he is carrying a boy and dog with his injured arm, as well as several bags.

Still, the Soldier will not fail. Failure is unacceptable.

 _You miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield._ A new voice in his mind says. It is partially incorrect. The Soldier would most likely survive, but Harry the Handler and Nighty would be splattered as the voice said.

He will not miss, but this is going to hurt when he makes it, though pain is hardly a novel experience to the Soldier.

As the freight train barrels past, the Asset takes a running leap and Harry screams. The scream sounds more excited than scared.

Some sort of energy shield briefly forms in front of the Asset, cushioning their impact with the side of the train. It is extremely similar to the shields the enemy asset conjured with the weaponized stick, but the Asset left the stick back at the lodge.

Is the shield coming from Harry the Handler? But he does not have the weaponized stick. Perhaps he has those unidentified abilities the enemy asset had, but can do them without the weaponized stick. That could explain why HYDRA wants the boy in the first place.

The Soldier assumes that Harry the Handler had not been allowed to make shields in the presence of the Dursley family, and would not have been allowed to shield himself from Vernon Dursley's beating.

The Soldier grabs onto one of the bars on the side of the freight car with his metal hand and hangs on tightly, gripping Potter with his flesh arm and the scruff of Nighty's neck with his flesh hand. His bullet wound is in agony as that arm supports the weight of the boy and dog, but he ignores the pain with gritted teeth.

Harry the Handler's exhilarated scream is replaced by the sound of the boy retching. It seems as if he will regurgitate again from the sudden lurching speed.

Before the Soldier can do anything about that, another vision flashes through his mind, of snowy mountains, and he's hanging from a different train in a similar manner.

No, wait, it is not him in the vision, because the man's body he is inhabiting has a real left arm, not a prosthetic one. The Asset does not remember a time when he did not have the prosthesis.

The blonde man who was sometimes a child in other recent visions is also clinging to the vision-train. In this vision, he is very muscular and wearing an odd blue suit. He reaches out, shouting "Bucky! Hang on!"

Who the hell is Bucky?

The Asset yells as he falls from the vision-train in the snowy alps, but snaps out it at the sound of a child screaming.

Harry the Handler's scream is now scared instead of excited.

He's falling in reality, having let go of the real train, and he only just snags a lower rail on the side of the freight car.

The Asset's boots almost skim the ground that's passing at a rate of 65 km/hour under them.

_MOVE._

The Asset digs his metal fingers in and hauls himself, Harry the Handler, and Nighty higher up the side of the speeding freight car. He kicks the car door open, but not hard enough for it to fly off its hinges.

He manages to fling himself and the others into the freight car and immediately grabs a gun with his prosthetic hand, scanning the interior and ensuring that there is nobody in it with them. He notes once again that it is fortunate that this is a freight train instead of a passenger train.

All that is in here is metal in the form of beams and rods, most likely to be used for construction.

The Asset shuts the freight car door, plunging the interior into almost total darkness. Fortunately, the Asset still has his night-vision goggles in his backpack. Harry the Handler is clearly used to the dark, and had probably been locked in the cupboard under the stairs frequently.

The Asset's tactical vest smells of vomit, undoubtedly from Harry the Handler, considering the retching sounds he'd made before the Asset was lost in the vision.

Nighty appears to have an easily-upset stomach that was upset by jumping against the train, like Harry the Handler. There are flecks of vomit around the dog's mouth, but the dog's vomit seems to have been left on the ground behind them. Which is just as well, because he probably would have tried to eat it like he had with the poop. The dog is disgusting,

Harry the Handler continues to cling to the Asset as if they are still dangling from the train and his tiny body quivers. The boy's clinging, as well as the fact that his heartbeat is quick from adrenaline, mean the boy is not asleep, yet his head droops against the Asset's shoulder in exhaustion, resting in his own vomit.

Nighty huffs out a whine and walks in circles before laying down on the train floor.

The Asset quickly checks Harry the Handler for injuries as the boy's body goes limp with sleep. The handler is unharmed, but he had lost his glasses sometime during the excursion of boarding the moving freight train.

He lays the now-sleeping boy next to the dog. Harry the Handler sighs contentedly and snuggles up to Nighty.

The Soldier then starts to re-bandage his own gunshot wound, mind racing.

The visions are a hinderance to the mission and had put the handler in danger. The Soldier will be punished for almost letting himself and the handler hit the ground. He is still awaiting punishment for gripping Harry the Handler too tightly when it seemed like the boy would fly out of his arms.

Why does he keep having visions of the blonde guy who changes ages and levels of physical strength between visions? Who is the blond guy?

грузовой вагон, _freight car,_ is the last in the string of trigger words that reset him. Is that at all connected to the vision about falling from a freight car in the snowy alps?

It is not important, aside from the fact the visions are distracting to the mission and should be eradicated. If the Soldier ever had visions before, they were almost certainly wiped in the chair.

He is malfunctioning, but this handler does not have a chair or cryo tank. He cannot be fixed without a chair, the reset had done nothing to his mind, merely his allegiance.

Despite the fact he should not be having visions, the Soldier cannot help wondering about them as he lays down, guarding the freight car door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this wasn't too boring. There will probably be a time skip sometime sort of soon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I managed to update on my birthday. Yay!

Once train stops, the Soldier hears movement in the surrounding area outside. Footsteps approach, causing Nighty to bark loudly, and then a voice comes through the door. _"Marionetka!"_

The Soldier slows his motion of drawing a gun, but still draws and aims it anyways, glancing at Harry the Handler. The boy does not give any orders, just curls up in terror in the corner of the freight car.

The Asset moves to position himself between his handler and the freight car door. Nighty stands beside the Asset, growling.

" _Marionetka!"_ The voice says again.

Codeword: once again rejected. There is a 99% likelihood that the man is an enemy of Harry the Handler.

It appears that extracting the tracking device from his arm had been pointless. Undoubtedly there was another tracker on his body that he had not known about. Perhaps they'd implanted it in case the first stopped working, or was removed.

It does not matter how they found him, just that they did. It is unacceptable. Harry the Handler's mission was to avoid HYDRA, but the Asset knew HYDRA was still looking for him.

The agent stupidly comes through the door and is immediately gunned down by the Soldier. The gunshot makes Nighty yelp and Potter whimper, but Potter is safe.

That is, until seven heavily armed, heavily armored agents flood into the freight car, all brandishing their weapons at the Soldier.

Harry the Handler had seemed to make some sort of energy shield when they jumped onto the train. Since it was similar to the shields the enemy asset conjured to block the Soldier's bullets during the fight, it would not be surprising if Potters would work in such a way.

Unless the boy's shields are weaker than the enemy asset's. He is a lot younger, after all, and does not seem to be in any condition to make shields at the moment. The Soldier grits his teeth. He shouldn't be thinking about putting his handler in danger anyways- he should always be the shield between his handler and danger, even if his handler can make shields.

_MISSION: PROTECT HARRY THE HANDLER._

_Affirmative._ The newer voice says. _The mission is also to avoid HYDRA._ The first voice neglected to mention that. That part of the mission ended in failure, but the Soldier will protect his handler to his dying breath.

"Soldier, stand down!" This voice is one the Soldier can actually put a name to.

Director Pierce.

 _OBEY. STAND DOWN._ The voice in his head says. Pierce, as the director of HYDRA, is the highest ranking person in the world, as far as the Soldier is concerned.

 _We need to get Harry the Handler out of here._ The second voice says. The Soldier's finger twitches on the trigger. The three agents' fingers do the same on the triggers of the guns pointed at him.

 _MISSION AND ORDERS ARE INCOMPATIBLE._ The first voice counters. The voices obviously no longer agree on the mission.

The red-and-gray-haired director steps into the freight car. "Stand down," He says even more firmly.

Director Pierce certainly outranks Harry the Handler.

Assassinating unidentified agents is one thing, but the Soldier can't even begin to think about assassinating Pierce. He lowers his gun.

" _Marionetka._ " Pierce eyes the Soldier coldly. Surprisingly, he does not use the string of codewords to reset the Soldier.

The Asset lowers its head submissively. "Ready to comply."

"What were you doing?" Director Pierce's voice and expression are calm, but he is obviously angry all the same. "We lost contact with the agents we sent after you the _first_ time, and found them dead."

"I killed them." The Soldier states flatly. That should be obvious. "They were interfering with the mission and the safety of the handler."

"What mission? What handler?"

"Handler Harry James Potter gave the code word _marionetka._ He became the new handler. New mission was to protect him and avoid HYDRA."

Director Pierce stares at the Asset for 2.4 seconds in disbelief, and then slaps the Asset in the face. Its head snaps to the side, but it does not react otherwise.

"Abort that mission." Pierce orders.

 _MISSION ABORTED._ The first voice says. The second voice starts to say something, but the first repeats, louder _MISSION ABORTED._

"You belong to HYDRA, you don't decide to follow the orders of a _child_ and murder your handlers." Pierce is telling the Asset. The Asset listens to the director with his full attention. "He is not your superior. Him giving the command word meant nothing, he probably just repeated what the agents said."

The Asset had briefly wondered about that, before thinking he should not question his (now former) mini-handler.

HYDRA still claims ownership over the Soldier. He had been AWOL, it is natural they would retrieve him, he thinks as they read his trigger words again. It is natural that they are angry about him defecting, are angry that Harry the Handler had become a handler in the first place. He was supposed to be the target, the package.

"Targets do not become handlers." Pierce tells him. "Understood?"

"Understood, sir."

He is HYDRA's asset again, not Potter's. The boy was evidently never truly a handler in the first place. The Asset has been going through a lot of handlers the past day.

He should have delivered Potter to begin with. If he had, Potter never would have had the opportunity to temporarily change the mission and become a handler. In the end, it didn't matter that he tried to run with Potter.

The boy is in HYDRA's hands anyways, and now the Asset is facing severe punishment in his future. He tries not to tremble.

The Soldier is once again cuffed- this time with much sturdier restraints that even its enhanced body might have trouble breaking out of. These agents are smarter. They frisk the Soldier thoroughly and relieve it of all his weapons, even the knife in its boot.

One of the agents walks past the Soldier to grab the boy.

Potter lets out a terrified sound, and Nighty sinks his teeth into the agent's leg, growling. The agent curses loudly and tries to shake the dog off.

Pierce calmly draws his own gun and shoots the dog in the head.

"Nighty!" Potter screams. Unlike when he'd been under the bed during the Soldier's fight in the lodge, Potter can see everything going on here. He may not entirely understand what just happened, but it's clear he knows something is wrong with the dog.

The child seems to want to crawl towards the dog, as if the dog has merely gone to sleep, but he's obviously to scared to go any closer to the agent.

Not that it matters, since the agent walks to Potter and picks him up.

Potter reaches out towards the Asset pleadingly, green eyes brimming with tears as small whimpers escape his throat. As soon as he opens his mouth to speak, the agent clamps a hand over it.

"He is a target. Nothing more." Pierce repeats to the handcuffed Soldier. "Come."

His metal arm whirs slightly as he follows his superiors out of the freight car and to the waiting cars that the agents drove.

Pierce leads the Asset towards one car, while the agent carrying Potter heads towards another one. They are being separated.

"Where are you taking him?" The Asset asks.

"That is none of your concern, Soldier." Pierce says testily. The Soldier is somewhat surprised he had not gotten slapped for speaking out of turn.

He is not reassured as he's shoved into the back of the car. It should not be thinking about Potter. The boy's fate should not matter. In the end, the mission is complete, even if the Asset had not been the one to complete it.

Potter is none of the Soldier's concern, but he is only a child. He should not have to go through what the Soldier goes through. He wonders if they're going to make Potter into another asset, if they know about the boy's ability to make shields without a weaponized stick.

"He has lacerations on his back and burns on his hands as well as bruises." Nobody replies, and the Soldier adds quietly, "Don't hurt him more." He himself had already accidentally hurt the boy by holding him with too much force during a vision. The boy had been hurt a lot at the Dursley residence.

This time, he is slapped and ordered to shut up.

* * *

The Soldier is chained up facing the wall, shirtless, deep in a HYDRA base. He has not seen Potter since they were put into separate cars. The boy could be in this base, or on the other side of the world, for all the Soldier knows.

The Asset has no reason to know where the boy is. The boy should not even be in his thoughts, yet the Asset cannot stop.

A whip cracks and tears into his back, and he grits his teeth, Potter no longer on his mind, only pain. This is all part of his punishment. He should have never disobeyed his orders or tried to go against HYDRA.

Pierce, standing behind him and watching him as he's whipped, reminds the Asset of this. As if he didn't already know.

Potter was a more favorable handler, despite being barely four years old and never being a handler, according to Pierce.

The Asset stays silent for the first fifteen lashes during his whipping, but afterwards can no longer hold back the screams. Being enhanced does not make this any less painful as they continue to fall.

He soon loses count of how many lashes he's received in his haze of agony, but the only reason he doesn't collapse to a heap on the ground is because he's still chained to the wall.

Then, they hose his bloody, raw back off with a powerful jet of water, bringing new waves of agony.

After an eternity, they unchain him and drag him bodily from the room.

The Soldier is almost relieved to be taken to the Chair, but being strapped down still sends his heartbeat racing and the back of the chair is extremely painful against his abused back.

Being wiped is as unpleasant as ever, and the Soldier screams through his mouth guard as the Chair shoots jolts of agony through his face until his mind is blank.

* * *

He jerks awake, gasping, when a body's weight presses down on him and something cold nudges his cheek.

The Soldier freezes, metal hand whirring as its plates shift. He grabs the attacker by the back of their neck (the front is too close to his own neck to grab easily).

Flipping over, he positions himself so he has the threat pinned to the floor with his knees on its back, prosthetic hand grabbing a gun and pointing it at the enemy. Should he just shoot the enemy now, or wait long enough to question-

The dog under him tries to growl and bite, but is hampered by the Soldier's knee pressing down on its back.

The Soldier pauses. It is the black dog. Nighty. But it had been shot.

The Asset looks around his surroundings. His night vision goggles reveal the interior of the freight car, the dog pinned under him, and Potter watching him with wide green eyes. "Don't hurt Nighty..." Potter says in a hushed voice, clearly thinking the Asset will attack him next.

It was a dream, he realizes. Pierce did not find him (although he's undoubtedly looking) and he is not being punished at the HYDRA base. Nighty is still alive, and the boy is still with the Asset.

He hopes it will stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured it would be too mean to let you guys think the first two scenes were real...


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is Harry Potter's birthday. I can't believe it took me over a month to update, though.

Despite realizing he is in the freight train instead of a HYDRA base, the Asset's heart hammers and his breathing falters as images from the dream continue to flash through his head. The punishment scene wasn't unfamiliar, and his back burns with phantom pain.

 _THE ASSET DESERVES PUNISHMENT FOR DEFECTING AND-_ The first voice in his head starts to say, sounding slightly disoriented.

 _Negative. HYDRA cannot find us like that._ The second, newer voice, interrupts. The mission is to keep Harry Potter safe. The boy needs the Asset, and he will not be safe with HYDRA. The Asset supposes that 'he' could apply to both of them- neither would be safe in HYDRA's clutches.

Perhaps, like in the dream, HYDRA has additional ways to track the Asset's location, instead of only having the device in his prosthesis. Removing just that tracker could have been useless if there is another he had not dealt with. They could be headed towards him now, ready to drag him and Harry the Handler back to a HYDRA base for real...

The Soldier quickly frisks himself for any more tracking devices. Failing to do so before, in the shed, was a major tactical error.

He lets out a small exhale when he finds no devices clipped to his clothes or anywhere on his body. His HYDRA handlers would not have expected the tracker in his prosthesis to be removed, and certainly not by the Soldier himself. They did not anticipate the possibility of their Asset defecting.

So HYDRA doesn't have a direct pinpoint on his location anymore, but it would be preposterous and stupid to assume that HYDRA is not searching for the Soldier and the boy in other ways.

Harry the Handler sits 3.3 meters away from the Asset, hugging Nighty the dog and watching the Asset's every move worriedly. His vision is obviously worse without his glasses, but he seems used to the dark. Then again, the Soldier is fairly certain the boy had been locked under the stairs at the Dursley house was a regular occurrence.

"Are you hurt, Nighty?" The boy whispers as he hugs the dog, even though asking a dog anything is pointless.

"He was pinned down but sustained no permanent injuries." The Asset replies after a bit, even though his handler was addressing the dog, not him.

Technically, that is true, but the Asset had been very close to shooting the dog when he first woke up, before Harry the Handler had brought him out of his haze. He is certain the real Harry would have reacted in similar horror to Nighty being shot to the Harry in the Asset's dream.

"Nighty's sowwrry." Harry the Handler almost sobs. "I told him not to, but..." The child glances towards something worriedly, and it's only now that the Soldier notices that the dog had gotten into their food stash while he was sleeping.

A few packs of sausages have been ripped open and devoured by Nighty (including some of the plastic wrapping), and the box of Harry's favorite animal biscuits has been torn apart, the contents scattered and broken.

He wonders if Harry had eaten some of the food as well. The boy is trembling slightly, and it isn't hard to guess that he'd tried to eat food in secret at the Dursley's' and was most likely caught and punished. Mrs. Dursley had been watching the boy to make sure he hadn't stolen food.

"Pinning the dog- Nighty- down was not a punishment for eating food. The Batman was unaware of its surroundings. " His explanation is not an excuse. There is no excuse. He should not have been so unaware, he should not have lashed out blindly just because of a nightmare. What if it had been Harry the Handler who'd touched him, and he'd pinned the boy down instead?

If he had attacked a HYDRA agent like that upon waking- not that he has much experience with sleep, and the cryo tank doesn't count- he would have been punished.

Harry the Handler is not punishing him for lashing out at Nighty. In fact, it is clear the mini-handler is wondering if the Asset will attack him, the same way he'd just attacked Nighty. Yet, the boy does not speak.

It is odd, having a handler be so worried around the Asset. Well, sometimes lower-level HYDRA handlers seemed nervous around him, but they were quick to assert their dominance. Harry the Handler has not done that at all.

The Asset stills, posturing his body in a non-threatening manner, crouched so he won't be looming over the tiny child.

"The Batman will not attack Nighty the dog now, or you, Harry." The Soldier speaks quietly, using the boy's codename for him. It is a better designation than  _Nighty,_ at least, the Soldier thinks. He is not supposed to have opinions.

He supposes that promise isn't entirely true. He hadn't consciously hurt the dog, after all.

"More malfunctions to report: sleeping without permission and blindly attacking." He states flatly, even though he hadn't been ordered to give a status report. What if he attacks Harry the Handler unintentionally in another state of... whatever that was. Panic? No, the Asset was not panicking when he first woke. The Asset does not panic, he does not feel. He is merely a weapon.

Harry the Handler just stares at him warily.

"The mission is to... avoid HYDRA, to keep you safe." The Soldier says slowly.

 _HYDRA CONTROLS THE WINTER SOLDIER._ The voice in his head supplies. It is true. He's been the Fist of HYDRA for as long as he can remember. They have the trigger words, the command words. They could override Potter's control over him, with more powerful trigger words than  _Marionetka._

They could make him hurt or kill Harry the Handler, if they overrode the boy's command. It would be only one more kill on his long list- which is probably even longer than the Soldier consciously remembers- but his brain protests the idea of hurting the child, much more so than when he'd strangled the Dursley boy.

They could make him hurt Harry and then forget about him, with the chair.

He does not want to go through the chair again. The few memories in his head will be lost to him, yet he will still know how to kill. He will lose everything. He does not know why that Bucky man's visions- memories?- are in his head. He does not know the blonde guy in those visions who went from extremely skinny to extremely muscular, but for some reason does not want to lose the images of him.

What the Soldier wants and doesn't want is meaningless. He should not have opinions.

"If they find us, they will hurt you, Harry." The Soldier says. They'd hurt him, too, but there's no reason to even mention that.

"Like Uncle Vernon?" Harry whispers.

"You would be hurt even more than you were with the Dursleys." The Asset replies, and for some reason saying that makes him hurt inside. Harry sniffles.

"No hurt, p'ease..." Harry the Handler begs.

In the dream, Pierce had said that Harry was not an official handler, that targets should not become handlers. Especially when they simply repeat a codeword that official handlers had just used on the Soldier.

The Soldier is sure that the real Pierce would say the same thing. Somehow, that changes nothing.

"You are better as a handler than a target, Harry." The Asset speaks quietly. Being under Harry's command is much less painful than his time serving HYDRA. For some bizarre reason, the boy has even smiled at him a few times over the past day.

Looking extremely confused, Harry raises his hands. Perhaps his vocabulary does not even include the word  _handler._

The boy doesn't say anything, and the conversation stops, followed by 3.6 minutes of silence.

"Nighty," The child whispers worriedly to the canine, and the Asset would not have heard him without enhanced hearing. "I can't find my glasses..."

"Your glasses fell off when we were boarding the train, Harry." The Soldier answers. In retrospect, the Soldier should have made sure the glasses were safe before jumping onto the train. It is his fault they are lost and most likely broken.

Harry the Handler startles slightly and lets out a little squeak, obviously thinking he hadn't been heard by anyone but the dog. "I d-didn't mean to lose them, Mr. A'set, sir. Aun' Tuna'll be angwy."

"Your aunt will not find out. She will not be angry." The Soldier wonders how bad his handler's vision is without corrective lenses. Had the lenses even been prescribed properly for his eyes? The glasses themselves had been in terrible shape, bent and taped together.

"Should obtaining new glasses be a new sub-mission objective?" The Asset's question is met with a blank look from the boy. "Do you need new glasses, Harry?"

"No, sir, 'm fine." The boy hastens to assure him, apparently under the impression that the Soldier will be mad if he tells the truth by admitting that he needs a new pair.

The Soldier frowns. His handler is lying. He truly does need the eyewear, yet he says otherwise. It does not make sense, handlers always tell him exactly what they want him to do. Does Harry not want to waste time getting it, and instead focus on getting as far away from the shed, the last place HYDRA had been able to track their location?

The train starts to slow down.

It seems like it's going to stop, so the freight train must be approaching some sort of station or warehouse to unload its cargo.

 _Avoid areas of scheduled train stops._ The newer, previously defective voice in his head says. It's not as if Pierce and HYDRA agents will actually be waiting for him at the station like they were in the dream. That is not why the voice suggested avoiding the station, surely.

But if someone was looking for him, they would look wherever the train stops. Getting off early would decrease the likelihood of being detected, even by the workers who will be unloading the train.

 _DETECTION IS MISSION NONCOMPLIANT._ That is generally a rule for all missions. The Winter Soldier is supposed to be a secret, after all.

It is unlikely that train workers would be undercover HYDRA agents, but it would still be a bad idea to let himself be seen by somebody. He usually kills any witnesses, but he does not think Harry the Handler approves of killing.

They should get off the train, yet, it is up to his handler, not the voices in his head, to decide what to do.

"Awaiting orders." Harry the Handler doesn't respond. "Should we get off the train?"

"Nighty wants to go." Sure enough, the dog is scratching at the freight car door.

The Asset gathers the bags, the boy, and the dog, and leaps out of the train.

The same vision of falling from a train flashes through the Asset's mind, but he is still aware of his surroundings. Perhaps it is due to the vision, but it seems they are falling through the air much slower than gravity would dictate. Harry shrieks with laughter.

He doesn't stumble when he lands, but he is closer to stumbling than he should ever be. He lets go of Nighty as soon as he touches down without really realizing it, but keeps his handler tucked to his side with his flesh arm.

"You flewed!" Harry the Handler's green eyes are wide with something like awe as he laughs delightedly. Fortunately, nobody had thrown up when they got off the train.

The Asset is 98.6% sure that HYDRA has not equipped him with the power of flight. He would have guessed that the child somehow temporarily lessened the effects of gravity. Similarly, he thinks it was the child who made the shield as he jumped on the train. It certainly wasn't the dog, and probably wasn't the Asset, although making shields would be a very useful skill for the Asset to have.

The Soldier sees two people walking on the street despite the time being 0145, but they are both inebriated. Threat assessment: low. It would be easy to incapacitate them, even without weapons.

 _No chance of blending in like this, Soldier._ The newer voice in his head says.

The Soldier knows he will attract unwanted attention if he walks around as he is right now. He's heavily armed with a gleaming prosthetic arm, which is far too distinctive. He's also covered in Harry's vomit and accompanied by an even more disgusting dog.

The blue sweatshirt he'd taken during his earlier Tesco theft is back at the ski lodge, meaning he'll have to acquire a new shirt to cover his prosthesis. A shirt that isn't stained with blood, vomit and mucus.

"I would highly recommend disguises." He says, because of course he cannot tell his handler that they have to get them. His handler decides what they have to do, just like he decides what the Soldier wears.

Except his handler does not answer.

"This way, we will not attract unnecessary attention. It will be harder to find us."

"So da mean bad guys won't find us?"

"It will make it harder for them." The Asset replies.

His guns and knives are concealed, so they should not attract attention.

It turns out there is another Tesco store- there seem to be a lot of Tesco stores of various sizes- a mere 2.25 km away.

Nighty does not seem particularly concerned with sticking with them once they are in the store. The dog sniffs the ground and heads towards the meat department, although the Asset is guessing that the meat hasn't been delivered for the day yet.

The Asset heads with his mini-handler towards the clothing department.

"Batman!" Harry the Handler points suddenly.

The boy is pointing at a shirt depicting fake muscles under a dark suit with a vaguely bat-shaped symbol emblazoned on the chest. Like some sort of superhero, like that blonde man in the somewhat ridiculous red, white and blue suit.

 _Batman_ is the Winter Soldier's new codename, and it's obvious that his mini-handler is addressing him, but the Soldier thinks that the object of his handler's attention might have something to do with Batman as well. From things Harry has said, it's obvious there's some other Batman in addition to the Asset.

"It's Batman." Harry says, confirming the theory about the shirt.

The Asset wears what his handler chooses, so he pulls one of the Batman shirts from the rack and pulls off his older, stained shirt.

Harry stares at the mass of scars where the Asset's prosthetic arm is connected to the rest of his body, looking almost sad, even though the Asset's scars and pain do not matter at all.

The Asset slips the new shirt on. It has a strange hood that covers the top half of his face and has weird pointy bat ears. At least it hides his hair and makes him less recognizable.

Potter laughs and claps his hands."You're Batman!"

"Is shaving preferable for disguises?" The Asset asks as they walk towards the aisle with personal care products.

"Batman doesn't have hair there." Harry points at the Asset's chin.

Considering that the Asset has the new codename of Batman and is now wearing what the Batman apparently wears, he figures the child would want him to look like Batman in that regard, even if he doesn't directly say it.

Apparently, they make electric razors- somehow the Asset thinks they didn't at some point in his life, and he definitely feels more used to the standard blades and shaving cream. He has a brief olfactory memory of some sort of cream he must have used in the past,

Potter has wandered towards the toy aisles while the Asset has been shaving.

On a whim, the Asset grabs some notebooks and pencils and starts writing down the visions he's experienced.

Harry the Handler does not seem to think the visions of the Bucky person's memories are critical mission info, but the Asset writes them down anyways. There has to be some reason they've been popping in his head.

Once the Asset is done, he finds Harry staring longingly at wooden toy train set with 'Thomas' written on the box. Why do these stupid anthropomorphic trains keep popping up? The Asset is certain that these are toys of the Thomas the boy was talking about.

"I wasn't looking!" Harry quickly lies, when the Asset reaches for the box. His handler clearly wants it, but the boy shakes his head frantically and runs away from the toys as if he's done something horrible.

The Asset leaves the Thomas set on the shelf and follows his mini-handler.

"Nighty needs dog stuff." Harry is actually trying to distract the Asset from that odd incident.

Apparently the dog is part of the mission now.

The Asset collects Nighty from the meat counter and then heads towards the pet aisle.

Harry the Handler points to food and water bowls, dog food, and dog biscuits on the shelves, asking Nighty each time if the items he selects are what the dog wants. The dog doesn't answer, of course, attention focused on gnawing on a rawhide bone he'd pulled from a shelf.

Potter watches the Asset add all the items to their cart. "And bwandy."

"Brandy." The Soldier repeats blandly, as if he's assessing he heard it right, instead of questioning his superior.

"Ripper drinked it with Aunt Marge."

Somehow, the Asset finds this strange, but he doesn't comment. There's an aisle with all sorts of alcoholic beverages. The Asset has a vague memory of beer for some reason, even though he doesn't think any of his handlers would have given it to him. Why waste beer on a weapon?

Regardless of the strangeness, the Asset picks up a bottle of brandy.

He also grabs some first aid kits and other medical supplies. He's already used up most of the bandages from the first-aid kit he'd taken from the Dursley's.

"Permission to check you over," The Asset requests. After all, it is always an unspoken order to see to the safety of his handlers. He had accidentally bruised the boy's torso earlier, but has still not been punished for that.

Harry the Handler nods slightly, as if he's trying to figure out what answer the Asset wants to hear. The Asset tries to be as gentle as possible, even though he really just lifts the boy's shirt to inspect his injuries. The boy remains stiff and wary, waiting for the Soldier to hurt him (which he will not do intentionally, as long as the boy is his handler).

"Are you gonna make me better again?" Harry the Handler looks down at his bandaged hands, clearly remembering the Asset patching up his injuries when he first found the boy.

"You are healing quickly." The Asset replies, as he unwraps and inspects Harry's hands.

The boy's injuries are healing faster than they should. Does Harry the Handler have enhanced healing as well, like the Asset? Perhaps HYDRA wanted the boy for that, as well as his powers that let him make a shield when jumping onto the side of the train?

They head back outside. The Asset is almost unrecognizable now. The weird Batman hood is actually a good disguise.

"Where do you want to go now, Harry?"

This mission is not standard procedure. He does not think Harry will be sending him out to kill his enemies- the boy hadn't even ordered him to kill the HYDRA agents in the lodge, but that had been the only way to help his mini-handler.

The Asset does not remember ever working as long-term protection detail, but that seems to be his mission with Harry the Handler.

It is an odd thought, knowing that he will not be stored in cryo or wiped when under Potter's command.

Before Harry answers, Nighty barks. An owl flies towards them and drops a letter on the boy's head.

What the hell. Since when did owls carry mail?

Harry the Handler looks as if he does not know whether to be scared or not, and the Asset picks up the letter to make sure there is not some sort of letter bomb. The owl screeches at him, and the Asset barely has time to read Harry Potter's name on the envelope before the mission is compromised.

* * *

Severus hadn't thought he'd be on a broomstick following an owl, but he is, and he hates it.

They hadn't found any real sign of Potter near the lodge- the kidnapping assassin had vacated the lodge with the boy presumably in tow sometime before their arrival

They'd come up with the idea to use an owl to find the boy, since one doesn't need to write an exact address to owl somebody. Really, they should have thought of this earlier, instead of trying to track the assassin with that 'GPS' device.

Dumbledore had needed to temporarily revoke some sort of charm he'd cast that redirected all owls sent to Potter. Apparently, the boy hadn't been getting all the fan mail and presents sent by well-wishers the past couple years. No doubt the brat's relatives spoiled him rotten anyways, even if Petunia had been jealous of Lily growing up.

Severus isn't particularly good at flying- certainly not good enough to ever hope to play Quidditch- but he is competent enough to stay in the air and avoid crashing.

Severus is wearing an invisibility cloak that Dumbledore produced from somewhere (which is odd, because Dumbledore himself doesn't need a cloak to be invisible, as he is at the moment) and Dumbledore has made himself invisible without a cloak.

A large black dog barks in Severus and Dumbledore's direction, or maybe it's barking at the owl. Can it smell them? The wind is, inconveniently, blowing their scent in the dog's direction.

The owl swoops down and drops the letter near Potter. The assassin, who is now dressed rather ridiculously, goes to pick it up, but the owl screeches at him, knowing it's for Potter and not that man.

Severus smirks slightly, because this time, the assassin has no idea he is here. He casts a silent  _Petrificus Totalus_ from underneath his cloak _,_ and the man snaps still like a statue, not having a chance to fight back.

This is what  _should_ have happened that first night, Severus thinks viciously as he stares down at the now statue-like assassin. He's tempted to dangle this man upside down in the air by his ankle with Severus' self-invented  _Levicorpus,_ or jinx him into oblivion some other way. This man had caused Severus a lot of grief and some rather painful bruising by throwing him into a slide.

Instead, he casts  _Expelliarmus._ Numerous guns and knives fly away from the assassin's body.

The assassin's eyes are furious as they dart around, looking for an attacker.

Potter is a lot smaller than Severus had realized during his very brief glimpse of the boy before fighting the assassin. It's hard to believe he just turned four, when he looks like a child half his age. His tiny face is gaunt, with prominent cheekbones.

Even if he hasn't eaten at all since getting kidnapped, the boy would not be this underweight. No, he's clearly been malnourished for a while, and Severus has a feeling maybe his relatives weren't as doting as he'd assumed.

"Mr. A'set, Batman?" The child asks his petrified kidnapper. "We go to sleep now?"

He goes to imitate the man and lie down, hugging the dog tightly but putting less distance between himself and his kidnapper than Severus would have expected.

Perhaps the boy is suffering from what muggles call Stockholm Syndrome.

The assassin glares murderously at the two wizards. He's not moving, obviously, but Severus is positive he's trying to move and break the spell. The prosthetic arm whirs loudly, but even the mechanical limb is bound by the spell.

Now that the kidnapper is taken care of, Severus removes the invisibility cloak and Dumbledore undoes his own invisibility spell. Potter clearly recognizes Severus, probably having seen him from the car the other night.

Potter looks at Severus as if he is scarier than the assassin. Severus has no qualms about the little brat having a healthy dose of fear of him- hopefully it will lead to a level of respect his blasted father never showed Severus- but why is he not acting scared of his kidnapper? From what the two escorts have revealed, the man is a deadly assassin with no emotions.

Dumbledore approaches Potter, smiling kindly. "You are safe now, Harry." The old man leans to pick the child up. Potter looks unsurely at Dumbledore and glances back at the assassin.

Dumbledore also grabs ahold of the dog, which Severus would have left behind.

Severus vows that no matter what, neither the boy nor the dog are going to end up anywhere near Severus' quarters or labs. He just rescued the brat, and hopefully he'll be handed off to someone else now.

Severus grabs the assassin.

Dumbledore apparates them to Hogwarts, and Severus levitates the assassin down to the dungeons, ignoring Potter reaching out for the floating, petrified man.

Hopefully the assassin will reveal more information than the two other kidnappers that Severus interrogated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I guess this isn't as bad as the scenario from last chapter...


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for leaving you all hanging. I had writer's block, and was just plain lazy.

The Asset falls stiffly to the pavement of the Tesco parking lot. He would think he'd been hit by some sort of sedative dart- perhaps HYDRA has caught up to him for real- but he had not felt anything pierce his skin.

The Asset finds himself paralyzed. It's somewhat similar to the sensation of his body freezing in the cryogenic tank that he experiences for the few seconds before unconsciousness, except without the cold.

_THE ASSET IS NOT FUNCTIONING. MISSION COMPROMISED. CANNOT PROTECT HARRY THE HANDLER._

That really could have gone without the voice saying it, the Asset thinks as he tries to overcome his paralysis. The escorts who were supposed to drive the Asset and Harry back to the plane had been paralyzed by the enemy asset's weaponized stick, but the enemy asset is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he teleported behind them, and is simply keeping out of the Soldier's sight range.

Like the escorts, the Asset can only move his eyes.

Then, all of the Asset's weapons fly away from him, except for the prosthesis. The servos whir, but the metal arm is paralyzed as well.

"Batman?" Harry the Handler asks, standing in the middle of the food that had fallen out of one of their bags. He seems unharmed by the shattered brandy bottles, fortunately, although Nighty seems to have stepped in one of them and the dog lets out a pained whimper. "Mr. A'set?"

_RESPOND._

The Soldier cannot respond to his handler like he is supposed to. "We go to sleep now?" The boy asks, as if he decided to sleep without his handler's permission. Does he not see that his eyes are open? The boy's eyesight seems terrible without his glasses.

The greasy-haired enemy asset that he had rendered unconscious suddenly appears as if from behind an invisible curtain, very conscious this time. He's holding a cloak, which is apparently what made him invisible The cloak is better camouflage than the Asset has ever seen. It's as if he was actually invisible under the cloak.

The man is also holding a broomstick, which is a poor choice of weapon, but perhaps he had no other choice after the Asset took his weaponized stick. The Asset wonders if it is a larger version of a weaponized stick, disguised to look ordinary.

No, it seems the enemy asset has his weaponized stick back. It could have been a different weaponized stick than the one he took, except the enemy asset is currently sneering at him for having dared to take it.

The Soldier reflects that he really should have finished off this enemy asset, instead of just rendering the man unconscious during their fight the previous night.  _No witnesses_ has been a standing order for every mission, so why had he left this man alive?

That poor decision really came back to bite him in the ass; the man had come back with reinforcements.

Then, a robed old man with silvery hair and a beard that both reach his waist pops out of nowhere, but he's not holding a cloak. When did they invent cloaks that grant invisibility, as well as cloakless methods, and why does the Asset not have it? Skilled as he may be at avoiding detection, it would be easier if he could turn invisible as well.

What are these men, wizards? The enemy asset had done some impossible things, much like Harry the Handler. Is Harry a wizard too? Is that why these two are coming after them?

The enemy asset grabs the Soldier, while the old man takes Harry the Handler's hand and grabs onto Nighty the dog. "You are safe now, Harry." The old man says. The enemy asset grabs onto the old man's arm, still holding onto the Soldier, the cloak and the broomstick.

Suddenly, he Asset feels a sensation like a hook grabbing his navel, and then he's being squeezed through a tiny hole. It's very unpleasant and rather nauseating, but he does not expel his stomach's contents. He couldn't right now, his jaw is locked shut.

Besides, even this sensation isn't as painful as a lot of what he's experienced in HYDRA facilities or even in the field. The Asset is used to pain, and his pain is unimportant.

The Soldier shoves those thoughts aside and focuses on his new surroundings when the squeezing and spinning stops.

He's in an entirely different place than the Tesco parking lot. He's inside some sort of office that looks like it was combined with a castle. There's a large desk and a lot of books, and strange instruments that probably are not used for torture. Sitting on a perch is a red bird of an unknown species.

The enemy asset had teleported them, which he'd done during their fight. Or was it the old man?

The Asset hears his handler expelling his stomach's contents yet again. He cannot fault the boy for doing so after that experience. He hears Nighty the dog doing the same.

The Soldier would snarl if he could move his mouth. The old man has no right to touch the Soldier's handler, let alone hurt him with the teleporting. Nighty the dog should bite the old man so he will let go of Harry the Handler, but the dog does not do this.

 _Hey,_ The new voice says  _Pick on someone your own size._

The Asset would have phrased it differently than the new voice, but he understands the sentiment. The man needs to get his hands off Harry the Handler, now.

The Asset can only glare at the men. Both men seem immune to his glare.

The enemy asset places the broomstick against a wall, and then does something with his weaponized stick that makes the Asset float upright in midair, though his boots still brush the ground.

The enemy asset starts to walk out of the office, down a spiral staircase that moves like an escalator, leaving Harry the Handler, Nighty, and the old man behind. The Soldier follows unwillingly in midair as if pulled by an invisible rope. He can hear Harry the Handler call out to him, but he can't do a damned thing about it as he's led away.

He even hears his handler trip and fall on the stone floor, letting out a slight whimper. That is unacceptable. The handler should not be injured. Then they reach the bottom of the spiral staircase, where there is a statue of a winged creature, and the Asset can no longer hear his handler.

The enemy asset seems completely unconcerned that he occasionally bumps or scrapes the Asset's floating body against the stone walls. There is a light shining out of the end of the weaponized stick that the Asset had left behind in the lodge. Perhaps the weaponized stick had not been a tracking device, after all, as this enemy asset still found them after the Soldier ditched the weaponized stick.

He scans his surroundings as much as he can without turning his head, memorizing the route they're taking so, once he escapes, he can make it back to the last known location of his handler. The old man had better not move his handler far away from that office.

What is the old man planning on doing to his handler? Will he hurt the boy, as HYDRA would? If that old man lays a finger on Harry, the Asset will kill him. He just has to be able to move.

The Soldier does not waste energy trying to move when he knows that he is somehow immobilized. As soon as this invisible force stops incapacitating him, he will strike.

He notices some rather odd things are happening in this place, but considering the odd things the two possible-wizards do, it is not surprising. The paintings are moving, rather like the movie screens, except they clearly aren't screens. The subjects of the paintings shout out to the Asset and the enemy asset as they walk. Some of them shout out at the enemy asset to put the light on his "wand" out. Others inquire as to who the Soldier is.

The enemy asset does not answer the paintings. Will they act as spies and alert the enemy asset or the old man of the Soldier's location, if he escapes?

The stairs move, too. Not like an escalator, because whole sections of stairs simply turn, changing which door they lead to. It is a security measure that the Soldier has not encountered until now. Who controls the stairs? The paintings everywhere on these staircases? There is no way the Soldier would be able to avoid detection.

He's led floating through several stone corridors and then down more stairs. These stairs are dark and cold and surrounded by walls unlike the open stairs above. It gets colder the further they descend, and the Asset is reminded of some bases he's been kept in.

He's finally led into a room that looks quite like a dungeon. The levitation ceases and he falls unceremoniously to the floor, still paralyzed. The enemy asset looms over him, looking rather like the Asset with long dark hair, dark clothes, and an intimidating expression.

It's obvious the man is planning on interrogating or torturing the Soldier. Both, probably. The Soldier doesn't know what methods or techniques the enemy asset will use, and the Soldier can think of hundreds of ways to inflict pain on targets (all of them are things he is itching to do to the enemy asset). What can the man do to torture people? Are weaponized sticks create torture methods even more effective than HYDRA's, or the Asset's own methods?

He notes that his captor looks rather tired, as if he hasn't slept much more than the Asset has, aside from that one stint of unconsciousness. The man is probably not enhanced to require less sleep, even with a powerful weaponized stick. It is good he seems tired, as he will likely be slower to react and more likely to make mistakes or overlook things, making the possibility of escape more likely.

There are numerous jars and vials filled with strange-looking liquids and substances lining the shelves on the walls. The Asset wonders how many of them are poisonous, and whether they will be used on him. He should be immune to most poisons, but this man somehow managed to paralyze him and can make things float and do other impossible things.

The enemy asset flicks his weaponized stick, and ropes appear out of thin air, wrapping themselves around the Soldier to bind him tightly.

This is not like the restraints that strap him to the Chair or operating tables. The ropes seem pointless, as he's still paralyzed.

"Don't try anything stupid. You won't win this time." The enemy asset sneers down at him.

Suddenly, the Asset's paralysis is gone. He supposes the reason the man bothered to release him from paralysis is because he's about to be interrogated and he'd been unable to talk before.

Breaking through the ropes binding him should be easy. He'll be one step closer to returning to his handler, although he still doesn't know how to avoid the paintings' eyes. But he pretends to struggle ineffectively against his bindings. When the man turns his back, expecting the Soldier to be neutralized, he'll break them and strike. The enemy asset won't know what hit him.

Except the ropes squeeze him tighter when he pretends to struggle, until he's no longer pretending to break out. Even with his enhanced strength, he can't break through them.

Of course the weaponized stick would be able to make ropes that even he can't break. Weaponized sticks are extremely annoying in the hands of enemies. This man turns his back to the Asset.

His prosthetic arm whirs slightly, and one of the plates shifts. The Asset uses the edge of the sharp metal plate to cut at the rope as he jerks his arms outwards. The ropes break, falling to the floor, and he silently sprints towards the enemy asset. This time, he won't leave him alive.

However, the enemy asset has turned around, perhaps hearing the servos whir. He points his weaponized stick at the Soldier, who flips a table covered in glass vials and a cauldron to use as a shield. The vials shatter on the stone floor.

The man flicks his stick again, and the table suddenly turns into water, which makes a huge puddle at the Soldier's feet. He almost slips in it, which should not happen. Such clumsiness would be punished by HYDRA agents.

Suddenly, the Soldier is hoisted into the air by his ankle and is left dangling by an unseen force. He tries to reach for some sort of weapon, but anything he could possibly use has already flown out of his reach. Trying to pull his hoisted leg out of whatever is holding it is ineffective.

He dangles by his ankle, waiting for the man to get close enough for him to strike, but the man isn't that stupid.

"I said not to try anything stupid." The man sneers. "I may have underestimated you before, but trust me, it won't happen again."

With another flick of the wand, the Asset is encased in metal from his neck to his feet, still dangling upside-down. Struggling once again proves ineffective, and his prosthesis plates won't be able to saw through this like they did the ropes.

Well, this man isn't getting anything out of him. The Asset's been trained to withstand interrogation and torture, on the off chance that he was captured. He also had to avoid reacting to anything his handlers did to provide correction or maintenance.

One of the vials flies off a shelf and into the enemy asset's hand. The contents of the vial probably do something unpleasant. He's been subjected to chemical and medical experimentation before, as scientists tested the effects of his serum. Whatever that vial does, he's probably experienced worse.

The Asset clamps his mouth shut, but the man just pinches his nose, obviously planning on waiting him out.

After 3.7 minutes, the Asset isn't even feeling light-headed and still has his mouth clamped tightly shut, much to the enemy asset's annoyance. The Asset can hold his breath for a 5.5 minutes, one of the benefits of his enhanced body.

The man manages to pry the Asset's mouth open and tip the vial of liquid inside. The Asset is about to spit it all over the enemy asset's face, but he clearly predicts that and covers the Asset's mouth before he can do it.

Scowling, the Asset swallows. Hopefully his serum will counteract the effects of the liquid. This man probably doesn't know he's enhanced.

"Are you the 'Asset'?" The man asks as if he already knows the answer. Had he captured the escorts? The Asset had left them petrified with the unconscious enemy asset. It was a serious slip of judgement. If he had just killed him, he wouldn't be in this situation now, and Harry the Handler would still be safe with the Asset.

_REMAIN SILENT._

The Asset does not plan on replying to this man. And yet his lips move and he answers truthfully, even as he tries to stop himself, as if the answer's being forcefully pulled out of him.

"утвердительный." He ends up answering an affirmative in Russian, even though he's been using English the past few days with the escorts and then Harry.

The man seems to guess that утвердительный means to either confirm nor deny, but he doesn't seem to know which one. It helps that the Asset's voice and face display no emotion, like peoples' do, because he gives no hints as to the meaning.

"Do you speak English?" The man asks, slightly slower. Again, the Asset starts to reply truthfully before he can even think of lying. Does this liquid somehow make him tell the truth? That shouldn't be possible.

"утвердительный."

The man briefly seems annoyed that the Soldier is only responding in Russian, but then he smirks and says "Coby."

There's a popping sound and a... creature appears, as if teleporting here. It's only a little bigger than Harry the Handler and proportioned like a child, but it's head has large pointed ears and huge bulbous eyes. It's completely bald and wearing some sort of robe with a crest on it.

"What can Coby be helping Professor Snape sir with?" The thing asks eagerly. The asset would not have guessed that the enemy asset, Snape, was a professor.

"Do any of you happen to speak Russian?" The enemy asset- who the Asset will not think of as Snape- asks Coby stoically.

The thing thinks for a bit and then grins, eyes bulging out even more. "Oh, yes sir! Booshky is speaking Russian sometimes! Should Coby retrieve Booshky for Professor Snape, sir?"

"There is no need for that. I can summon her myself. You are dismissed, Coby." Snape says. Coby disappears with a pop, and after a second, Snape says "Booshky."

Another creature seeming to be the same species of Coby pops into existence, only this one is wrinkly, suggesting she is older than the former one.

"Professor Snape, sir, called for Booshky?" The thing apparently named Booshky asks, bowing its head slightly. Her voice is as eager as Coby's, although she sounds like an old lady.

"You speak Russian, Booshky, correct?" The enemy asset asks.

"Yes, Master Snape. Booshky used to serve at Durmstrang." Booshky replies.

The enemy asset's lip curls. "I didn't think Durmstrang was in Russia."

"Only those who go there know where it truly is, but some students there speak it."

"Translate what he says for me." The enemy asset jerks his head towards the Soldier.

"Yes, Professor Snape sir."

"What is your name?" The enemy asset addresses the Soldier this time, but he won't be getting an answer.

" _The Asset does not have a name._ " The Asset answers unwillingly. Yet he continues to speak in Russian, so the enemy asset will have to rely on this odd Booshky creature for translations.

"The Asset is saying the Asset does not have a name," Booshky relays the message.

"Your accomplices also referred to you as the Winter Soldier." The enemy asset says. So the two escorts had already given away HYDRA secrets. The Soldier is one of HYDRA's biggest secrets. Had the answers been ripped out of them, or had they just squealed like pigs?

" _'Winter Soldier' is an approved designation._ " The Soldier confirms, even though he once again was trying to keep his mouth shut. Booshky translates this for the enemy asset, who seems to grow annoyed.

"Answer my question." The man orders. "What is your real name?"

" _The most recent designation is 'Batman'._ "

"Batman?" The man briefly glances at the Asset's clothes, but evidently doesn't seem to know that- according to Harry the Handler- they are Batman clothes.

The man starts to grow annoyed, clearly not understanding the Asset's words. The Asset almost wants to smirk for some reason, even though doing so would probably be deviant behavior.

"Perhaps you are immune to this potion, as you were to stunning." The enemy asset muses. Whatever the petrifying thing was, the Asset should be immune to that, since it had severely compromised the mission.

Yet the enemy asset still asks another question. "Do you know what happened to the other residents at Number Four, Privet Drive."

" _They were to be disposed of after collecting the target Harry James Potter._ " The Booshky creature's large ears perk up when she hears the name. " _The Asset strangled Dursleys in their sleep, before providing medical aid to the boy and blowing up Number Four Privet Drive._ "

"The boy was your target?" The man scowls. "What does HYDRA want with Potter? Your associates failed to answer the question."

" _The Asset was not told what would happen. It was simply told to acquire the boy and deliver him._ " The Asset knows that Harry the Handler would have been hurt, though.

" _The Asset defected and failed the mission._ " The creature repeats this in English after it's wrenched from the Asset's mouth.

"You failed at delivering the boy." The enemy asset surmises. Whatever feelings he has about it, he hides them very well.

"You were at a muggle ski lodge." The man continues, sneering. "Yes, I tracked you there, and found several dead bodies."

" _They tried to take us back. He would have been hurt._ " Hurt like the Asset is hurt.

"You had just murdered a family, and were about to murder several others, yet you had qualms about delivering a boy?" The enemy asset watches him with a calculating look. "You feel... protective of Potter." He says the name  _Potter_ as if it's filth.

Booshky has been watching the Asset more and more warily as this interrogation has gone on, but she seems to relax slightly when the enemy asset says this.

The man scowls. "You are immune to this. Your associates told me you're nothing but a mindless assassin. You cannot feel protective of a boy."

Booshky's shoulders slump slightly.

"You won't be able to deceive me." The enemy asset raises his weaponized stick. " _Legilimens._ "


End file.
